Just a friendly reminder that as of 2 a.m. today, those of us observing Daylight Savings Time must “fall back” an hour to Standard Time.

After the Red Sox won, we noted that Yankees fans would have to ditch the “1918″ chant. Yesterday I saw a suitable replacement: the Daily News sports headline had something along the lines of, “See you in 2090.” Twenty-Ninety has a ring to it . . .

So I guess this means Yankees fans have to ditch that (charmingly) obnoxious “Nineteen Eighteen” chant . . . but on a more serious note, who let Jimmy Fallon on the field?

Today I had the pleasure of riding one of the vintage trains that the MTA trotted out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the subway system. I was not the only geek waiting sheepishly as several standard S trains pulled out of Times Square, a small knot of mostly middle-aged men with fancy cameras and subway-themed attire tipped me off to the track that the vintage cars would pull into. The shuttle train is always short, and this one had only three cars. One was from 1940s, I think, with wicker seats and a pretty foreign-looking subway map. The middle car looked kinda 50s, with teardrop-shaped hangers and linoleum tile floor; the last was baby blue and was probably from the 60s. The coolest part was reading the ads - all vintage. My favorites were a Kool ad from the 60s with a smoking penguin (!) and a movie poster pitching Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

Many passengers seemed to know what was going on (they were announcing the centennial in all the stations all day, and it’s been a news story for months now with various museums putting up exhibitions), but a fair number were visibly amazed/confused. A group of teenagers sitting next to me were giddy, yelling “Yo, man, this is what you call a throwback car!” to no one in particular. An older woman to my left mumbled, “This makes me think I’m drunk.” I think the MTA should run these puppies more often.

You have to love the Post’s adept turns of phrase. Oops — did I say the “Post”? I meant to say the Official Newspaper of the Subway’s Centennial Celebration.

Today’s special insert follows the story of the subway system, including an interactive site for aficionados.

The special section collects notable movies and songs relating to the subway and adds a nice “Did you Know?” portion including the following nuggets:

Early IND cars had light bulbs with reverse-screw threads to prevent passengers from stealing them for home use.

The first woman conductor was hired in 1917, when many men were overseas for WWI. They were dubbed conductorettes.

New York’s 468 stations are only 35 fewer than the combined total of all other subway systems in the country.

Frank Hedley, an early and influential subway executive who was born in England, introduced British spellings to the IRT. Everyone else had dispatchers. The IRT had despatchers.

A hat-grabbing fad developed in the 1920s. Mischievous riders would snatch hats off of men standing on the platform. The fad declined after a grabber was accidentally killed.

The longest ride (without a transfer to another train) is the 32.3-mile trip on the A train from 207th St. in Manhattan to Far Rockaway, in Queens.

The New York subway system has approximately 6,400 cars.

The day with the highest ridership was Dec. 23, 1946 when 8.87 million fares were collected.

New York’s subway system uses enough power annually to light the city of Buffalo for a year.

The F and G train stop at Smith and Ninth streets is the system’s highest station — 88 feet above street level.

The station which lies the deepest below ground is the 1 and 9 stop at 191st Street in Manhattan — 180 feet down.

There has never been an I, O, P, U, X or Y train. I and O were never used because they might be confused with numeral one and zero. P was likely skipped to prevent embarrassing travel directions like, “You can take a D at Columbus Circle, or you can take a —.” Well, you get the idea.

Before holding lights, dispatchers used a system of loud bells and gongs on the platform to signal the trains to leave. The last gong survived into the 1970s at the 111th Street station on the 7 line in Queens.

(Research assignment: What was going on December 23, 1946?)

The Times has a big front-page tribute to mark the 100th anniversary of the subway’s debut: “A Day in the Subway, as It Rolls Up a Century”.

Randy Kennedy catches interesting details of an average day in the subway “in all its mundane monstrosity,” but you have to see the incredible picture of the W train as it makes the curve into Queensboro Plaza. How did they do that?

The ballots have been counted and Ms. Subways 2004 has been crowned. The Post picks up the story:

Caroline Sanchez-Bernat was crowned the first Ms. Subways in nearly 30 years yesterday as part of the transit system’s centennial celebration.

“It’s great to be part of a New York tradition,” said Sanchez-Bernat. “I think Ms. Subways is a great representation of New York women.”

Sanchez-Bernat, 29, said she entered the contest — sponsored by The Post and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — “on a total whim” after her friends encouraged her to fill out the entry form this summer.

Sanchez-Bernat, who won a year’s worth of free rides and a subscription to The Post, was given a tiara and sash yesterday during a ceremony at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, a Manhattan restaurant owned by Ellen Hart Strum, a 1959 Miss Subways.

“I grew up riding the subways,” she said. “I rely on the subways.”

The Times’ coverage fills in some more details, in particular noting (oh, the irony) that one of the finalists was an hour late to the crowning event because of an unavoidable subway delay.

The Yankees’ unprecedented utter collapse calls for a quick scan of this dark day’s tabloid headlines.

The Daily News leads with, “The Choke’s On Us.” Subhead is “Worst Postseason Collapse in Baseball History; Bronx Nightmare Sends Sox to Series.”

The Post’s front page blares, “Damned Yankees” (subhead: “Feeble Yankees Complete Collapse, Bow to Hated Bosox in ACLS”). Its sports back page also uses the choke meme — this time, “What a Choke” with the subhead, “Sox Reverse Curse with Game 7 Win.”

If I get a chance, maybe I’ll take a picture of the papers and add it to the Defeat page, where it can shine next to those devastating 2001 World Series headlines.

It is interesting how many trucks have overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike lately, spilling out curious cargo. The latest mishap involved a truckload of chickens. The Times investigates:

First there were horses, crabs, pasta and the flaming cake mix. Then came thousands in bills and coins dumped onto the roadway, in what has been a bizarre year of spills and escapes on the New Jersey Turnpike.

So the appearance yesterday of hundreds of chickens on the road at Exit 3 in Camden County was taken in stride by officials of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

“South Jersey is not the place you want to be if you are poultry or live seafood,” said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the authority.

The accident occurred when a northbound tractor-trailer carrying the chickens was struck from behind by another tractor-trailer about 3:30 a.m. and burst into flames, Mr. Orlando said.

The driver and a passenger in the truck carrying the chickens escaped, he said, as did the driver of the other truck.

And so did many of the chickens - hundreds of them, fleeing the burning hulk and wandering up the roadway and into the woods.

Rescuers who arrived on the scene a short time later were able to herd the chickens along the turnpike and capture most of them, Mr. Orlando said. But at least half the cargo of chickens died in the fire, he said.

In my mind I see that ubiquitous car chase money shot, when the getaway vehicle narrowly misses a truck full of chickens, causing the load to spill across the highway. More:

It has been a strange year for spills and sightings on the turnpike.

Early this year, two horses escaped from a farm not far from yesterday’s crash site, and were spotted running next to cars along the turnpike. In July, a truck carrying thousands of live Maryland crabs overturned, also in South Jersey. Two weeks later in Woodbridge, there was what Mr. Orlando called “the pasta incident.” A truck carrying packaged pasta crashed, burning more than a few servings of dried noodles.

In the highest-profile spill this year, a truck overturned last week, spilling thousands of dollars of its $4 million in coins and bills. The spill, near Exit 12 in Linden, drew many people to the site, Mr. Orlando said. Ninety-five percent of the money was recovered.

The following day, a truck skidded on a mattress it had snagged at Exit 10, crashed into a tollbooth and burst into flames, destroying not only the tollbooth, but also the load of cake mix on the truck.

Mr. Orlando said the turnpike had a rich history of odd spills. In 1987, a truck carrying thousands of live turkeys crashed, sending the turkeys onto the roadway. Motorists stopped to catch them, and for many, it was finders keepers, he said.

“This year there’s been more than usual,” he said of the spills, adding that he was preparing for the next one. “I still haven’t come up with a good reason why the chicken crossed the turnpike.”

One of the more unusual places to give birth.

After last week’s announcement that New York City would host next year’s Country Music Awards (cue Mayor Bloomberg in that great ten-gallon hat), the Times attempts to find traces of a country music scene in the Big Apple. Cue Columbia professor — hilarity ensues:

Adam Fox, an associate professor of music at Columbia University, has studied country music and its place in society. He has written three books on the subject, with a fourth on the way.

Mr. Fox said he considered the lack of a robust mainstream country music scene a positive because it allows for a variety of thriving subcultures, ranging from “hipster country” to “black Caribbean country.” He also says that country music does have stronger support in other parts of the city, including Staten Island, and in areas of New Jersey, where the music’s themes tend to resonate strongly.

In New York City, Mr. Fox said, “country music has risen and fallen with the fashionability of country in society.”

Over the years, some country music singers and their fans have had an uneasy relationship with New York. One song by the late singer Waylon Jennings, called “Too Dumb for New York,” includes these lyrics: “When you’re pushed and shoved and almost mugged/It ain’t no place to be/So I came to one conclusion/New York ain’t for me.”

In recent years, particularly after 9/11, country music has aligned itself with conservative politics, Mr. Fox said, adding that he was not sure that Manhattan and the Country Music awards make a good fit.

“There are more white, working-class fans to support a country scene in New York than most people think,” he said, “but they’re not concentrated enough to support a kind of scene you might find in Atlanta, Baltimore or Cincinnati.”

The international hand signal for “sliding inexorably into the abyss of elitism” involves holding one’s palm face down at eye level and tracing a steep slope in the air, adding an audible fading whistle for effect.

It was good to read the lukewarm review of the Public Theater’s Richard III in today’s Times, if only because we were too late to get tickets to the sold out run.

And let’s be clear about why people wanted to see this production — the silly publicity photos gave the impression that the production’s main draw was the spectacle of 4 foot 5 inch Peter Dinklage — last seen in the cult hit The Station Agent — playing Richard III. Ben Brantley’s review sketches the scene:

Ascending the throne has never been more of a struggle for the title character of “Richard III” than it is in the production that opened last night at the Public Theater. This is not a metaphor. Peter Dinklage, who is portraying Shakespeare’s most villainous monarch, is 4-foot-5, and the throne of England was obviously designed for a taller king.

Brantley comes close — this close — to saying what we were thinking:

Mr. Dinklage’s size and silence in [The Station Agent] registered as an artful and natural expression of an outsider’s isolation, a mirror for feelings of the other major characters. So it made a certain immediate sense when it was learned that Mr. Dinklage would play Shakespeare’s old crookback, a man doomed from birth by physical appearance to regard himself as a misfit.

Of course, the casting also smacked faintly of a publicity-luring stunt, of another offbeat star du jour turning up his limelight via the stage.

Bottom line seems to be that Dinklage was generally good as Richard III but that the production wasn’t so good. Terms like “overheated amateurishness” and “embarrassing” are thrown around. Your sense of Ticket Schadenfreude* is preserved.

* “Ticket Schadenfreude” is loosely defined as the sense of satisfaction one feels after finding out that a sold-out show isn’t really worth seeing.

The fallout from canceling the Terminal 5 exhibition continues. Brian Eno, whose “Music for Airports” was recently rereleased, was set to do a “lecture-demonstration” at the historic terminal apparently in connection with the exhibit. Not anymore:

On Monday the musician Brian Eno visited Terminal 5 of Kennedy Airport, the curvilinear 1962 futuristic building designed by Eero Saarinen for T.W.A. that has been closed since 2001. An art exhibition of installations designed for the space had just opened there, and Mr. Eno, whose 1979 ambient album “Music for Airports” was reissued this week, was preparing a lecture-demonstration.

He was in New York for appearances that included a dialogue with the filmmaker Todd Haynes last night as part of the Music and Media series at the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Eno’s lecture at Terminal 5 was moved when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shut down the entire art exhibition after a opening-night party damaged the building.

So some jabronis ruined our chances to actually hear “Music for Airports” in an airport. Agh! Buffoons! (The Times article says that he was testing some kind of demonstration at the space, but perhaps that was before the exhibit was shut down?)

The Terminal 5 website explains that “Terminal 5 was closed by the Port Authority based upon the actions of guests on Friday, October 1.”

It adds:

In response to the NY Times article by Carol Vogel, please note the reporter failed to mention a primary comment by Ms. Ward, “Along with the Port Authority, we too are shocked at the disrepect of the landmark by the general public at the opening event. We too have a passion and dedication to the landmark that we have been trying uphold and we invite people to review the current state of the building.”

Unlike the comments issued by the Port Authority and JetBlue, we will continue to respect the agencies we have been working with on this project. All were involved on the planning of the event and the resulting incident was an unforutnate act of vandalism by the general public. We do not want to highlight failure of support by our contractors for security and cleaning or failed support by our sponsors to attend or be involved in the event in question. We will instead uphold a positive esteen for Kennedy Airport and all those involved in the planning stages of Terminal 5 who helped train us to handle the landmark terminal. If the Port Authority must discontinue the contract for Ms. Ward, she will allow the building to be supervised by another contractor so that the exhibition can remain installed.

The art exhibit at JFK’s Terminal 5 has been shut down. As the Post puts it, “Airport Art Trash Lands”:

A super-trendy art exhibit at JFK’s former TWA terminal was grounded by the Port Authority after guests at the opening-night party vandalized the landmark building, leaving it in shambles, officials said yesterday.

The PA revoked the permit for the much-hyped exhibit, called “Terminal 5,” after the famed Eero Saarinen structure was trashed by partygoers — who left behind pools of vomit, broken glass and hundreds of cigarette butts.

They also scrawled lewd graffiti on the walls and tried to break open doors and walk out onto the tarmac at the Friday-night party.

“It’s a gorgeous building that is a piece of art,” said PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco.

“We couldn’t allow these conditions to exist inside it. We couldn’t stand by and let it continue.”

Terminal 5 was closed in 2001 after TWA was absorbed by American Airlines. It will eventually become a part of a new JetBlue complex.

The art exhibit, which was supposed to open Tuesday, had been set to run until the end of January.

The party had been open to the public and attracted hundreds of people, far exceeding expectations, said exhibit curator Rachel Ward.

She said she ordered the opening night bash shut down “as early as possible” when it became obvious the party was spinning out of control.

“The unfortunate events are a serious and unfortunate exception to what we have planned,” she said.

Ward said she hopes the exhibit, which had taken more than a year to prepare and cost thousands of dollars, will eventually be allowed to open.

“We are willing to make any required changes, modifications, increases in security or cleaning crews to get the exhibit open,” she said.

She said sponsors of the exhibit cleaned up the damage after the Friday fiasco and invited the PA to come and see what a good job they did.

“I share the Port Authority’s concern and shock at the public’s disrespect,” she said.

“I think I also share their passion for aviation and JFK Airport. My main goal was to open the landmark terminal to the public for daily hours. I’m trying my best to do that.”

Asked if the agency would reconsider its decision to close the show, DiFulco said only: “The permit is pulled and the building is closed.”

The show was to have displayed the work of 19 painters, sculptors, film makers, writers and other artists.

As a rule, I don’t read the Voice. I do glance through the compilation of random inside jokes they publish annually, aka the “Best of New York.” This year, one entry made me wince.

I had the misfortune of passing “Carl” daily at my last place of employ, and had to witness both his ranting and the pathetic losers who would nod in agreement. Some of his pearls of wisdom:

• “When a man has sex with a woman, it is rape.”
• “Women are only made to serve man. Man must enforce the law.”
• “Britney Spears works for Lucifer. We can see this in her navel.”

Ok, so that last one is funny. But really, can’t we celebrate the goofy mute magician that lugs around a dove and a rabbit on the train? Perhaps a kind word for Chuckles, the squeaking clown whose outfit always involves a matching pair of sunglasses? I guess nice guys always finish last…

Christopher Gray explains the innovative architecture of the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene:

Nearly cubic, and roughly 100 feet on a side, the temple is marble, rough-textured brick and glazed terra cotta. The horizontals of the base and upper section contain the verticality of the middle section, a screen of pilasters and engaged columns. Architectural critics gave the temple rave reviews — but it does not, at first glance, look that spectacular.

So what is so great about this building?

Hewlett and his partners rethought several accepted practices, like the glazed terra cotta columns. To reduce the number of joints, architects tend to make columns out of the largest pieces possible. But terra cotta shrinks during the firing process, and the larger the mold, the harder it is to produce pieces close to specification, and the more prominent the joining.

With the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, the architects went in the counterintuitive direction, firing not three or four large sections per column, but about 50 much smaller elements. The resulting joints are so numerous they become part of the design, rather than merely interruptions.

The architects also used color with sophistication. The nearly monochrome shade of the marble base gradually evolves to a festive splash of sienna, green, yellow, cream and blue at the cornice and frieze. The cream-colored column drums were fired with a slight amber tone in the fluting, emphasizing the natural shading in the recessed grooves, and adding a color accent.

The designers also reconsidered normal bricklaying practices. Instead of the usual course-on-course brickwork for the wall surfaces, they produced oversized brick units by stacking the bricks in pairs, with dark mortar between the paired units. The design gives a massiveness that a traditional one could not.

Although the glazed terra cotta was considered nearly self-cleaning, today the Brooklyn Masonic Temple has lost much of its punch. Although the Masons have kept the brick, terra cotta and even roof cresting intact, soil has collected all over the terra cotta, substantially dimming its original brilliance.

Some buildings do not benefit from cleaning, and this might be one of those. But in the temple’s present condition, the original design can only be imagined.

Bonus Point: A Walk Through Fort Greene

In the cutthroat world of Broadway, profit margins and fanciful set designers increasingly are taking precedence over lowly harpists and percussionists. Hilarity ensues:

On the seventh floor of the St. James Theater, two musicians in the orchestra for “The Producers” give new meaning to the phrase “phoning it in.”

The theater’s pit is too small to fit a harpist and a percussionist, so every night (and at matinees) Anna Reinersman and Benjamin Herman cram themselves into a 10-by-20-foot room draped in crimson velvet curtains, with water pipes running above.

As an air conditioner hums, they watch a little man - the conductor - on a television monitor. Headphones pipe in the music from colleagues in the pit downstairs, and close-range microphones transmit Ms. Reinersman’s and Mr. Herman’s own playing to a sound board. Their parts are mixed with the other players’ and broadcast through loudspeakers to listeners in the audience, who cannot tell the difference.

“I could play there in my underwear, and they would have no idea what’s going on,” Mr. Herman, the percussionist, said.

A satellite facility such as the one at the St. James Theater is known as the “sky pit.” And hijinks abound:

Life in the sky pit is an extreme example of what goes on, nonmusically speaking, in the pit. Reading and doing crossword puzzles are major activities, naturally. Look at the oboists and bassoonists, and you may see them whittling obsessively on reeds. One musician in “Cats” was known to watch a mini-television, using headphones.

“It sort of depends on what you can get away with,” said Matthew Dine, an oboist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Ballet Theater and now “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which he plays onstage but hidden from the audience by a scrim. “I get a lot of work done there,” he said, referring to the paperwork he fills out as a contractor for other ensembles.

The segregation of out-of-pit musicians also creates the conditions for shenanigans.

“It doesn’t get much crazier than dart guns,” Mr. Dine said. “We’ve had some small plastic flying chickens in ‘Fiddler,’ only because in our little area it’s possible.”

The string room at “Will Rogers Follies,” which ran from 1991 to 1993, lives on in legend. The musicians set up a basket and shot a Nerf ball, and laid down a putting green. Richard Sher, a cellist in the show, recalls lox and bagel spreads on Sundays, spiced with Bloody Marys. By the end of the show’s run, he said, players were improvising away.

Add Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Sorrow, Acsension, Suspension” gallery exhibit to your to-do list and see pictures of Ed Harris, Jude Law and Benicio del Toro crying. How fortunate are we.

Fortunate we are!

Are we fortunate?