Argyle Park, 9/19/24

THE PLACE

Wide open spaces abound on New York’s Long Island, even in the middle of suburban sprawl. It’s common on the island to step off a commuter train or turn your car away from a traffic jam and land somewhere that conjures up the countryside. Argyle Park in Suffolk County’s Village of Babylon is such a place.

A tree reaches out toward Argyle Lake within the Argyle Park grounds. Argyle Lake is fed from the north by Carlls River, which outflows again south from Argyle Lake, eventually into the Great South Bay.

Canada geese rested in the grass beside Argyle Lake. Flocks of Canada geese ply the lake and its surroundings.

An active railway runs along the northern edge of Argyle Park.

Mute Swans also are plentiful on and around Argyle Lake.

THE LENS

I shot the video (see YouTube link at the top of the page) with a Sony A7 IV mirrorless camera, in XAVC S HD mode at 60p. This is the first video I’ve shot at 60p. I’ve shot all the other videos on the Hornpipe Brewery channel at 24p or 30p for a more natural look, but I wanted to experiment with some slow-motion sequences and speed ramps for the Argyle Park shoot, so I doubled the frame rate. I used two slow-motion sequences in the video: the first at 1:46 and the second at 2:04. I edit video on a MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro editing software.

THE MUSIC

I’ve played the fiddle for many years, and now at the age of 55, I’ve just started playing the guitar. I made the leap despite my age for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a desire that’s common among melody-instrument players to play chords. For this video’s soundtrack I played an inexpensive acoustic steel-string guitar made by Takamine. It’s one of their entry-level instruments in the Jasmine line.

I found some chord diagrams online and strung them together in a progression that ran through C, G, Am, F, and G7. Making the chord shapes and getting the strings to ring is difficult, as any guitar player will acknowledge, and even with fingertips used to fiddle strings, getting used to guitar strings took a few days. I went to bed with sore fingers for the first couple of nights after practicing. Playing the F barre chord was the most difficult. I moved to F from Am in the progression, which took some doing. You can hear the thumping dead-string sounds during the Am-to-F chord change, and in several other places besides. I’ll keep practicing.

THE GLASS

I’m dealing with some plumbing issues in the homebrewery, so brewing is at a standstill for the time being. Fortunately meanwhile, thousands of other brewers throughout the world are brewing and selling beer. I’ve been enjoying the clean, malty taste and light mouthfeel of Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, brewed in Munich, Germany. Even after its approximately 4,000-mile trip from Munich to Long Island, it holds up as some of the finest lager in the world.