Hard to fathom that it’s December, already, no? Seems like Halloween was only a couple of weeks back, and now here we are in bona fide Christmas season. Time flies.
In any case, I spotted this clip fairly recently, and it struck something of a timely chord for a number of reasons. For a start, I’ve mentioned the Walkmen here a couple of time. Honestly, as I’ve said before, I’ve become something of a needlessly reluctant fan of theirs, given that I still think their name is stupid, I think they’re a bit pretentious and for a couple of other petty non-reasons.
Honestly, I don’t even know if they’re still a going concern these days, being that their lead singer – the robustly-christened Hamilton Leithauser III – recently bequeathed a solo tune to the trailer of Garth Risk Hallberg's sprawling new novel, “City on Fire.” I’ll defer to their more ardent followers for that scoop. Incidentally, I believe Leithauser has since dropped the “III” from his moniker.
ANYway, being that I love a good music video shot on these New York City streets, I immediately warmed to the Walkmen’s “While I Shovel the Snow” from 2011. Perfectly capturing the whisper-quiet atmosphere of New York in the snow, “While I Shovel...” finds Hamilton and cohorts milling wistfully around in the falling flakes and gazing solemnly across the river at Manhattan from what looks like the anchorages of various bridges (`cos, y’know, they’re hipsters and lived in Brooklyn at the time, I suppose).
My snark aside, it is a lovely clip. And the song doesn’t entirely suck either.
Grim post-script: One other aspect that looms over this for me is that at certain points, Leithauser & Co. seem to be immediately across from the spot I was speaking of a couple of weeks back, that being the Bandshell in East River Park. Oddly, just days after posting that entry, a deeply disturbing story broke about a female jogger being raped in close proximity to the Bandshell, serving as a grim reminder that New York may not quite be as safe, sound and sanitized as we have been led to believe. I remember sitting briefly in the amphitheater section and being struck by how quiet and deserted it felt (until three kids on skateboards suddenly appeared, of course). I believe the perp has since turned himself in, but it’s still an awful, awful story.
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