They swarmed town center by the thousands. They ran and jumped and drank free coffee and chased each other until the cows came home.

Not that anyone noticed, but there was a band in there somewhere as well.

“We played our hearts out,” says Fox Stratton of Haven Road. “And nobody noticed.”

Ah, but that’s where he’s wrong. Or rung.

“Whatever the band was in the bandshell, they had this cowbell they kept banging,” notes casual music fan and devoted amateur long-distance runner Trudy Logeau. “From where I was at the starting line, it was about the only thing you could hear. I have no idea what song they were doing, or why they needed a bell. But the beat was slightly faster than the pace I usually run, and I kind of mentally absorbed it and used it in my running.”

The clanging wasn’t actually a bell. It was this tinny metal sheet which Fox and drummer Kid Green jointly pound during their quasi-original blues tune “Do a Runner.”

And did they! Trudy improved her time by a full 14 minutes and came in 87^th in the 10K. “First time I’ve cracked the top 100,” she gushed. (You gush a lot when you run that far. Some call it sweat.)

When Fox and his friends were apprised of their distant influence, they proclaimed delight. “We’re number 87!” they roared while chugging beers on the lawn after the marathon gig. “On the charts!”

Dud night in the clubs: East Walpole at the Bullfinch, all by themselves… Freightliner at Hamilton’s… D’ollaire’s closed for cleaning (or laundering?)…

One of the fighting windowsill birds has died.

Reggae’s Gone Country. For starters, even if they were all brilliant, a mere14 tracks couldn’t begin to explore the similarities—subtle, profound, structural, lyrical and thematic—between music from Nashville and music from Jamaica.

But they’re not brilliant. They’re lazy, shifting a few beats here and there. It’s like when new age artists add woodwinds to something and call it “Amazonian.”

Country and reggae have both fostered whole cultures, whole ways of life, which are greater and grander than the music itself. This album doesn’t begin to grasp the scope of what could be an extremely informative exercise.

Batman Inc. (DC Comics)

Batman Inc. has held my attention in a way few multi-character open-ended comics titles have. I just think the concept is way overdue. Why would an orphaned overachiever, born into vast industrial wealth, not eventually find a way to exploit his heroic alter ego by franchising him? Well, he finally has. Batman has always had undertones of capitalism run amok—all the key players (Batman included) are either hordeing cash and jewels to fund extraordinary involved laboratories and subcultures, or (hello, Catwoman) they’re just attracted by expensive shiny things.

The first half-dozen issues of Batman Inc. were about Bruce Wayne (the first and foremost Batman, just back from the dead) inviting a cultural rainbow of fresh recruits to don the cowl and join his new international crimefighting organization, in which a host of specially picked community crusaders have been invited to the don Batman’s signature cowl.

Wayne visited Japan, a Native American reservation and other areas which had bred their own Gotham-esque protectors. But the action has recently shifted to the nuts and bolts of how the corporation will run. A bunch of potential investors, in fact, have just gotten trapped in a computer game! Oracle has to help Batman find a way of the cyber maze! And the old capitalist coots seem positively energized by the experience.

Corporate risk assessment was never like this, and Batman has never been as conscious of the corporate culture which begat him.

Could anyone possibly find a good excuse NOT to vote today? It’s not like it isn’t one of the most beautiful days in weeks. It’s not like there aren’t choices among the refreshingly credible slew of candidates. There are new theories to test and new points to be made in just about every ward. There’ve been energetic battles up until the last minute. There are signs galore pointing you towards the polling places, and plenty of volunteers willing to drive you there if you can’t handle the stroll.

For those who live outside New Haven, even just in one of its suburbs, it’s hard to fathom how important our city’s primary elections can be. This city votes (and registers) overwhelmingly Democrat. Republicans are rarely a threat and the Green party is the only “third” party that’s placed anyone in an elected office in decades.

So today isn’t just Primary day. It’s Finality day as well, the day when just about everything gets decided, or easily forecast. After we vote today, barring any unforeseen deaths or freak acts of nature, we’ll know who our aldermen are likely to be, who our mayor is likely to be, and who their cronies are likely to be.

My own family spent some time this summer canvassing for Frank Douglass, who’s running for Alderman in Ward 2. It was hard to explain to neighborhood newcomers the importance of registering Democrat and voting now, rather than maintaining their dubious “Independent” status and sounding off when the major races have been decided.

I moved to town with “Independent” leanings myself, a quarter century ago, and learned within weeks that if I switched I’d get to vote more often. That’s not an incentive for those who see voting as a chore, granted. But voting is one of my favorite sports, and for those that love to vote, this is the day to do it.

The New Haven Register’s list of city polling places is here.

A wonderful New Haven Independent piece by Paul Bass about the historical context of this year’s mayoral race is here. I worked alongside Paul at the New Haven Advocate for many years, and miss the sort of opinionated, history-based long-form writing he used to do regularly for that paper. This is a wonderful example of that sort of thing.

Having rediscovered the “I Yam What I Yam”/ “He Needs Me” single from the Popeye film soundtrack in my stack of basement 45s, I rented the whole movie from Netflix and gave it a big build-up to my daughters: “They look just like Olive Oyl and Popeye and Bluto and Wimpy, but they’re real people! The songs are by the guy who did ‘The Lime and the Coconut’!” And the ultimate come-on: “There’s a baby in it!”

Mabel and Sally got duly excited. They fetched some bendy dolls they have of the Popeye character, while I grabbed the huge book 100 Years of Comic Strips to show them some of E.C. Segar’s old Thimble Theatre strips which inspired the look of the film.

Then we all sat rapt before the screen as Sweethaven appeared, Brigadoon-like, before our astonished (unpopped) eyes.

Removed from the bewilderment, scorn and disappointment which met the film upon its release, Popeye holds up just fine. In this cartoony milieu, Robin Williams actually comes off as understated. His low-key mumbling is ideal for a film in which he is not so much the star as he is a befuddled visitor. Like most Robert Altman films, this one celebrates community. Williams doesn’t dominate; he fits it, despite those ungainly forearms.

Once the octopus had been undone and two generations of popeyed men had sailed off victoriously, the girls scoured the 100 Years of Comic Strips book and found a Segar scenario which had been staged virtually verbatim in the film. I, meanwhile, luxuriated in the closing credits: Paul Dooley! Ray Walston! McIntyre Dixon! Nilsson! Van Dyke Parks! Klaus Voorman! Plus that baby, Altman’s own grandson. The child, Swee’pea, is an active participant in one of the most touching, sweetest verbal exchanges in the whole picture—with Robin Williams no less, who in his earliest films was regularly criticized for barely interacting with his castmates.

Here’s how it goes: Popeye has discovered orphan babe Swee’pea in a basket. He’s reading a loud from the abandonment letter pinned to Swee’peas swaddling: “Love him like a mudder. Signed, a mudder.” In the midst of this recitation, the perky Swee’pea, unbidden, blurts out “Ba Ba Ba Ba!”

“That’s right,” Williams rejoinds. “You’re a baby. Says so right here.”

You’d think somebody had been killed in there. Or taken a hostage. Or cleaned out the cash register. Or perhaps played a soppy ’70s ballad.

No, this was a crime worse than those. You’ve never seen a club owner more apoplectic.

An out of town band, angry that they’d earned less than expected at the door, broke the door. Shattered a plate glass door.

Hard to do. And harder to clean up. But Q and bartenders Bill And Jan swung into action and had the front area swept and clear by closing time so folks could stumble home safely.

Then came the matter of boarding the door up so the staff could leave too.

The band has been charged with all kinds of things. The Bullfinch owners, who frankly look the other way at all kinds of small fracases and interactions, are throwing the book at the miscreants this time.

It’s the perception of doors. Don’t mess with doors. You’ll get shut out fast.

Folk Nite at the Finch with American Album of Familiar Music, School of the Air and Andy and Virginia… Avalon Time and Beat the Band (don’t tempt us) doing lame covers at Hamilton’s… An Evening with Ann of The Airlanes at D’ollaire’s. With that admission price and no opening act, they couldn’t at least have thrown in another Airlane or two?…

Saw two birds fighting on a windowsill.

Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers (St. Martin’s Press, 2011)

I didn’t want to write about The Leftovers until after the 10^th anniversary of Sept. 11, because I don’t want to think about it as a Sept. 11 book. Others will, and have, but that’s limiting. Tom Perrotta has purposely written a book where a lot of people vanish overnight, causing unmeasurably large social, religious and political changes. But he doesn’t tell you what caused the mysterious disappearances. September 11 is even mentioned in the book—as a whole other thing, much different from this latest (vaguely present-day) cataclysm.

Not explaining why all these people are missing isn’t about adding a layer of fantasy. Perrotta wants to write a book about grieving, If he doesn’t dwell on the reasons for the loss, he can just write a book about loss and not a book about loss and paranoia, or loss and terrorism, or loss and revenge.

Streamlining his narrative to the stories of the survivors, Tom Perrotta has written his most populous  layered and issue laden novel yet. Don’t let that scare you. The Leftovers will scare you, but in the right ways, the suspense-building ways.

Leaving out an explanation gives The Leftovers a neat Stephen King feel. Both Perrotta and King like to comfort readers with anecdotes of domestic life, random musings on pop culture (with canny use of brand names) and the natural suspense which comes from ordinary people who harbor dark secrets, or find themselves in awkward romantic relationships. Perrotta’s use of a supernatural disappearance brings them one step closer. Ultimately he outdoes Stephen King epics such as The Tommyknockers or The Dome because he doesn’t spend the last fifth of the book uniting all the key characters in some frantic search to uncover the meaning of the world-changing event. In The Leftovers, the denouement is much milder. It’s low-key. People have to get on with their lives.

The Leftovers has already been tapped for an HBO miniseries. A grander palette than a two-hour film is appropriate, since the book alternates numerous compelling stories. It’s particularly good in showing how people make their own minds up about something. The mass disappearance? Could be the Rapture, sure. Could be a lot of things. How should people react? Some organize, some join movements, some lose their way, some don’t seem all that affected, some cope by watching reruns of SpongeBob Squarepants. It’s refreshing to read a book about a world-changing event with such believably varied responses

Perrotta also gets the difference between the kind of conversation you’d have in a bar and the kind you’d have in a coffeehouse. He understands the regional differences in such things as well. He knows, and shows, how people’s minds wander when they’re on a road trip. He recognizes, and can relate, the value of silence.

There are other wonderful storytelling touches:

• A thoroughly non-cliched small-town mayor, a regular guy who is neither power-hungry or corrupt, and seems able to leave his work at the office and have a reasonable personal life.

• A young man who’s found himself actively involved in a new religious organization, yet seems admirably clear-headed, confused at times but hardly brainwashed.

• Young adults who have genuine young adult concerns, such as who to accept a ride home from late at night, how to make a little money or whether to stay in school.

• Well-developed minor characters who might ultimately be the deliverers of plot twists but who have endeared themselves already as more than that. There’s a minister who believes it’s his duty to report the sins of the disappeared, and a fresh-born baby with attitude, and a young recruit into a chain-smoking group of martyrs called The Watchers. All lovingly fleshed-out.

Perrotta understands, and knows that readers understand just as well, that individuals can be very different and still get along, diametrically opposed in profound ways yet still attractive and sympathetic to each other.

Best of all, he’s funny. As touching and grieving as The Leftovers is, it never stops being wonderfully absurd. There’s horror and tragedy in losing, and in losing control, but there’s great humor there as well. And Tom Perrotta is a great humorist. Here’s a terrific set piece from 50 pages in:

Depending upon your viewing habits, you could listen to experts debasting the validity of conflicting religious and scientific explanations for what was either a miracle or a tragedy, or watch an endless series of gauzy montages celebrating the lives of departed celebrities—John Mellencamp and Jennifer Loipez, Shaq and Adam Sandler, Miss Texas and Greta Van Susteren, Vladimir Putin and the Pope. There were so many different levels of fame, and they all kept getting mixed together—the nerdy guy in the Verizon ads and the retired Supreme Court Justice, the Latin American tyrant and the quarterback who’d never fulfilled his potential, the witty political consultant and that chick who’d been dissed on The Bachelor. According to the Food Network, the small world of superstar chefs had been disproportionately hard hit.

Stephen King, eat your heart out.

(For a review of the audiobook of The Leftovers, read by Dennis Boutsakiris, head over to my companion blog, New Haven Theater Jerk.)

Louise Burns, Mellow Drama.

There are some heavy sounds on this 12-song album—massive drums and guitars on “Paper Cup,” a soaring snarl on “Burning Bridges”—but there are also demure chansons like the back-to-back “Island Vacation” and “Sea Song,” and old-fashioned pop exercises such as “Street Walking” and “Teen Angst.” It all comes together on “Drop Names Not Bombs,” a witty, wordy musing on one’s place in the world, underscored with tinkly piano and mostly propelled by Burns’ expressive, clear and vibrant vocals. Neither self-absorbed or particularly peaceful, “Drop Names Not Bombs” is a busily beautiful slice of life philosophy.