The Ladybug Transistor formed in Brooklyn in 1995, and frontman Gary Olson has been the band’s sole constant member. Clutching Stems (Merge) is the group’s seventh album and the first to be made following the 2007 asthma-related death of drummer San Fadyl. Since, the band’s lineup has solidified behind Olson, featuring Kyle Forester, Julia Rydholm, Mark Dzula, Eric Farber and Michael O’Neill. The Ladybug Transistor will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Olson.
Mark Dzula: The Old Croton Aqueduct did its job too well. It began to supply New York City with clean water in 1842, and the population surged. In about 40 years, a newer, bigger aqueduct had to be engineered. Currently, the old aqueduct’s underground tunnels lie defunct, but one can follow them aboveground on the Old Croton Trail, a good, long walk from Westchester to the Bronx. Walking 26 miles with friends is a pleasure. You can talk all day long, and you can walk quietly side by side as you observe the world around you. When do you get to spend such an uninterrupted stretch of time with anyone, especially in New York City? Inevitably, you will be different by the time you return home.
On the way, old ventilation towers of stone act as mile markers. When I walked the trail with friends, a cool breeze seeped out of a weir chamber in Sleepy Hollow, as if from the eerie John Bellairs novels I read as a kid. Luckily, the day we walked together was one of the few beautiful spring days we had this year (Mother’s Day, coincidentally). The trail’s sunny ramble resembled the idyllic short in Pineapple Express where the heroes gambol in the woods before they have to return home and face their lives.
Everyone has to return to some semblance of reality, and the city didn’t hesitate to welcome us back. Broken bottles and crumbling housing foiled the laughter and exuberant banda music that wafted from a backyard barbecue as the trail shifted into Yonkers. As we descended that Sunday evening, Yonkers was a ghost town. Most of the buildings and businesses seemed abandoned; splintered cutouts of animals lurched in the weeds of a vacant lot, a burlesque zoo.
We parted the trail as it grew dark to return to Manhattan and to the Indian Road Café in Inwood, our favorite ending after a daylong walk. Surely the journey outweighs the destination, but it helps when the destination promises something delicious. Already at dinner, we discussed possibilities for our next walk. The aqueduct tended the trail.
Video after the jump.
