Coaster Pilgrimage!

June 28, 2007

When I was growing up Riverside was the local amusement park. Large enough to be interesting but small enough to still feel “local”: any trip up to Agawam, MA was cause for celebration.

During my youth their big, impressive ride was the Loop Coaster. Compared to today’s coasters it can only be described as tame, but at the time it was pretty damn cool. The premise is simple: after you climb the six flights to the loading platform you board your train. Being a launched coaster, you didn’t ease your way down to a chain that hauled you up the first hill. A sled would thrust the train forward until gravity took over and pulled you down the hill and into the loop. That done, you would go up the other end of this symmetrical coaster and wait on the other side until the ride operator felt you were anxious enough - and then launch the train in reverse back through the loop.

This last sequence was the real joy of the Loop Coaster. If you sat towards the front of the train, you could feel the acceleration as the tail end cars pulled the train down the hill, but you were never quite sure when you were going to start falling backwards into the loop. It’s a wild feeling.

I was fascinated by the Loop Coaster when I was a kid, but not enough to give it a shot. I did watch it obsessively, though. I can still quite clearly visualize the train being pushed forward, and the sled slowly returning to its home position after it had dispensed of its cargo. I also remember the lights than ran the length of the track - they would appear to move forward, like many chaser-type coaster “Christmas Lights”, but would then reverse direction like the train itself. It always disappointed me that they didn’t change direction at the same time the cars did. (on a similar note, the Loop Coaster was wild at night)

It took me well into my adolescence to actually climb aboard the thing. It’s hard to imagine now, but looping coasters were still looked upon as “ultimate tests” back then, maybe because they were still fairly rare - they’ve only been in existence for about 30 years, and when I was a kid (late 70s/early 80s) they were new, and very intimidating.

Alas, things change, bigger thrills crop up, and a few years back when Six Flags starting rumbling through Riverside I feared the worst for the Loop Coaster. By the mid 80s it was known as the Black Widow - the installation of the infamous Riverside Cyclone right next to the Loop Coaster blurred the distinction between the two at they were both painted white, and a new identity for the Loop was born after a sexy black paint job. I lamented the change at the time and insisted on calling it the Loop Coaster, but in hindsight I have to admit that it did look much cooler.

At any rate, whilst prowling the ‘net one year I found the sad report: the Loop Coaster had not survived one of Six Flags’ park updates (they also ripped out the Monorail which, even though I loved it, had admittedly outlived its usefulness). A bit more searching turned up these depressing images, and I mourned the passing of an era. Seems that Six Flags relocated some assets out to a defunct park with the plan of perhaps reactivating them at some point. If you look closely at the pictures you will also see the remains of “Little Rickie’s Little Twister”, a kiddie coaster that I rode many times in my very early years.

Alas, any second life for the once mighty Loop Coaster was not to be. One year I checked on the status of it, and discovered that it had been sold for scrap. It was a sad day. Not to get too sappy, but I look over those pictures of the dismantled Loop Coaster and think “I rode those rails. I sat in that train.” sob.

This year I decided that I needed to ride this style of coaster at least one more time before they all fall apart. A quick search through the Roller Coaster Database revealed that there are only four of this type of coaster - Arrow Dynamics Shuttle Loop - left on the planet. The nearest one is out in Indiana.

That’s where Melissa, Baha, and I are headed in a few weeks. I have to ride one again. Theirs - known as “AfterBurner” - is said to be Arrow Dynamics’ prototype of this kind of coaster, built 30 years ago in 1977. So, we’ll be out there celebrating its anniversary, and I’ll be having one hell of a time reliving a tiny part of my youth.

Oh - and, uh, - hoping this doesn’t happen again.

Posted in: distractions 9 Comments »

Floaters

June 25, 2007

My folks are making their way up the Hudson River. Here is their vessel Nancy Ann, a custom-built lobster boat affair that makes for smooth cruising as opposed to flashy speedboat or yacht type stuff. The story of The Boat is an epic in and of itself, if you’d care to hear it buy my Dad a drink and hold onto your seat - you’re in for a bumpy ride.

In the meantime, pay them a visit at their blog and leave a comment! They’d be tickled to hear from folks whilst still on their trip. They’re checking in at available hotspots whenever they can.

Posted in: plug 3 Comments »

analog to digital

June 6, 2007

I got into a conversation with a friend of mine at Chain Camera Store last night about video. I was still giddy over my LaserDisc purchase.

The scan conversion problem never occurred to me when thinking about my eventual move to HDTV. I knew there’d be some teething problems connecting an LD player, but it appears I have to watch for one very particular component: the scan converter. Many of the new TVs have very poor ones built in, presumably to make you forget your old components and buy new ones. The other option is to buy an outboard scan converter.

Hmm. I think I’ll be waiting until 2009.

Either way, the VHS tapes are in considerable peril. I’m going to go home and go through them again - anything that is easily replaced with a DVD (if I so desire) is gone. Everything else is going to be backed up to DVD as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I’ll stick with an analog-to-digital conversion that I’ve already got a firm grasp on: photography!

This is one of the first shots that I took at the terminal, when we feared that there wouldn’t be much to do besides some exteriors. The bland lighting reflects the very overcast day, another detriment to getting any positive work done at the site.

Eventually we found a way to sneak into the old baggage building - well, sneak isn’t really the right word. The door was wide open.

The back side of the baggage building, facing the tracks. I don’t really think I like this image.

Amusingly, my two favorite image (so far) from the trip were totally unexpected, and from the same lunch trip. Here is the side of a West Marine store (this one’s for you, Dad!), and below is a bit of wall from some restaurant we had a nice buffet at. There are more from the Terminal, but only a couple. I’ll post them soon.

The following two are “local practice”. Not bad. At least I still know how to shoot horizontal - I was fearing I’d forgotten.

My thoughts on all this are leaning towards totally forgetting about location and compiling shots from all over. Calling them the same place. Or calling them no place. Something like that. If I told you the above two shots were also in Buffalo you’d believe me.

Right?

Time to dig out the critical theory tomes from grad school again.

(p.s. whilst prowling around forums and such to figure out what life held for me with the LaserDisc/HDTV problem, I discovered one amazing thing: people are vicious to LD owners! I mean, if you phrase the question “I’ve got some old tapes, so I need to be able to connect my VCR…” you get pleasant, sound advice. Bring up LD? Just kill yourself. It’ll be easier. Now I remember why I loathe forums.)

Posted in: distractions 2 Comments »

Last One. No, really.

June 5, 2007

Today I asked the head of A/V here at MIT if he knew anyone who might want the giant old Sony top-loading LaserDisc player that I got for free a few years back.

I could almost see the eye-roll in his email reply.

Oh well.

We were once at the forefront of video fetishism, we LaserDisc users, but now it has turned on us - marginalized video weirdos, stubbornly hanging on to dead media, open to scorn and ridicule from those who favor shiny little 5″ discs and real-time video streams.

With that in mind, I proudly bought another LaserDisc player.

As penance for this purchase I am getting rid of the aforementioned Sony player. It was time. Also going out is the basic Pioneer player I picked up at Goodwill. Not to mention, I have also decided to eliminate two SelectaVision players (out of 5!) - one beyond repair, one old and iffy.

OK, so maybe I shouldn’t cling to obsolete formats. But at least I’m eliminating four excess players. That’s, uh… progress.

This leaves me with the nice combo LD/DVD player that Megan gave me from a Bose demo player liquidation a few years back, and now this one.

It’s a beauty. Part of Pioneer’s “Elite” series, it was the near-flagship player at the time. Picked it up for almost nothing down at Q Audio in Cambridge.

Why? Why LaserDisc? Why would I hang on to some dippy old format like this?

Well, most importantly: why not.

Also, the giant discs are too cool. I have a great collection of titles. I like the format. The players can still be repaired. I have Koyaanisqatsi on LaserDisc, not to mention the Criterion edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind that contains both the original 1977 theatrical release and the “Special Edition” from 1980.

It’s stayin’.

I constantly debate my obsolete formats, and think I’ve made some good choices - see the previous entry for tales of slimming down the CD collection, for one. I hate 8-Tracks and will never collect them. I have a tiny collection (~15) of irreplaceable cassettes (mix tapes, etc.) I have a grand total of perhaps 6 DVDs (I’m waiting to see how the HD thing pans out). My VHS tapes are constantly being thinned out to almost nothing.

Periodically I wonder if I should eliminate my LPs, my SelectaVision collection, or LaserDisc, and must admit that LP would be the first to go if things got that far.

But I don’t think they will.

Posted in: distractions 6 Comments »

Methodology Revision

June 4, 2007

Something was bothering me about my iTunes library.

Basically, I had separated my music into two groups: CDs I wanted to keep, and CDs I wanted to get rid of. The CDs I kept I ripped into iTunes as 128k MP4 files. The CDs I got rid of came in as Apple Lossless.

The problem, of course, is that should I want anything on the iPod from discarded CDs, the Lossless files would have to be re-ripped into 128k unless I wanted to constantly drain my battery with big files. This meant redundant files and all sorts of weird Library nonsense.

So I decided to re-rip everything into 224k, except for classical entries which were jacked up to 320k. Lossless files were downsampled to 224k, 128k files were redone from the CDs (yes, it took a long time and was quite tedious). This left me with files good enough that I didn’t care about throwing out the Lossless files, and small enough to not torture the iPod.

There is a noticeable sound improvement. You may not believe me, but there is. I also recovered about 50GB of my hard drive space, bringing the total down to 85GB - much easier to back up onto DVDs.

Also through this process it has also come to my attention that Wire’s Send is the most poorly mastered, most horrifying-sounding pile that I’ve ever heard. Shame, really, as underneath the screaming, distortion-causing “loud is good” mastering job is a great album.

This is my nerdy minutiae-obsessed entry for the month. Stay tuned for further neurotic behavior.

Posted in: distractions, sound 2 Comments »

Birth

June 1, 2007

Note: I meant to post this on my birthday, but Buffalo was awfully distracting, and as I haven’t got much else to say at the moment (tired, dizzy, crazy), here it is. I’ll be “back in touch” more soon, with pictures and everything, but at the moment I’m having unyielding visions of my bed.

It always made a certain kind of odd sense to me that the three biggest people who shared my birth date were Irving Berlin, Salvador Dalí, and Martha Graham.

It has been brought to my attention that a very significant fourth is none other than JJ Jeczalik, one of the founders, architects, and master Fairlight-twiddler of The Art of Noise.

Pretty much completes the picture.

Although I’m in heavy savings mode, I couldn’t resist picking up a used copy of And What Have You Done With My Body, God? their 4-disc box set of early output.

Take the first two AON records - Into Battle with the Art of Noise and Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise?, and imagine having access to all the tests, experiments, and odd little blueprints that were sorted and compiled to make those two legendary albums.

For some? Totally tedious and not worth it in the slightest.

For me? Four and a half hours of fascinating peeks into the assembly of a Modern Musical Masterpiece.

Music snobs may scoff, but “Beat Box” and “Close (to the Edit)” had an unbelievable effect on me when I was a kid. The secret back story of the 1980-1985 time limit on the Early Eighties Project is that my interest in top 40 pretty much ended once I discovered the Art of Noise (along with Depeche Mode’s Some Great Reward LP) and realized that there was a lot more going on out there.

“Close (to the Edit)” sounded like absolutely nothing else that was coming out at the time, and despite the reabsorption of many of the techniques and ideas - and, indeed, individual sounds (check the snare on Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” for one) - nothing has sounded like it since.

Give it a spin if you haven’t done so lately - it is one hell of a lot of fun.

Posted in: filler 2 Comments »