'Design Newark' Show Closes December 3rd

Very long post, over 4,800 words, with 30 fotos. Feel free just to check the pictures.

This might be titled, "Get to Design Newark or Miss Out", because I think the show is definitely worth seeing. I have now been to the "Design Newark" show at the 239 Collective three times, and seen something new each time.

What I had not seen the first two times was what proved for me the most interesting part of the show, downstairs, off the main floor. The bulk of that area deals with designs to promote Newark in the eyes of visitors.

That portion is filled with very interesting, if not even brilliant, ideas that people concerned with the future of this fine city need to address. We know Newark is splendid, but most people outside Newark think bizarre the very idea that Newark is splendid.

Outsiders do not understand what there is about Newark that has inspired devotion verging on fanaticism for scores of thousands of people. Some of those people are still here; others left, in The Bad Old Days, and are so angry about "having" to leave this magnicent American city that they haunt message boards to vent their rage against the Newark of today.

An unexpectedly fuzzy picture, which I have reduced in size to try to sharpen, given that the type size in the poster itself is quite large.

They don't know Newark, and never will know Newark unless we who love this city reach out to draw them in to the real Newark — or, as some designs in the show call it, "New Work", which is one of the meanings of "Newark".
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Many of the designs in that area speak to striking art objects and arrays that will make each doorway to Newark a distinct and eye-catching focus, like a monumental gate thru the invisible (but all too real) wall around the city.

The entire group of Newark Gateways posters, at various sizes depending upon venue, should be on long-term view somewhere in, for instance, the College of Architecture and Design within NJIT, and the (magnificent, Art Deco) waiting room in Newark Penn Station, and in the ground-floor lobby or some other prominent space within the HQ of the Newark Public Library. Copies of the posters should as well be in places like Arts High, Newark Vocational High School, Newark Tech, Science Park High School — wherever Newark kids with a gift for design and/or the ability to produce the designs that others create are being educated to live in the New Newark and make it ever better.

"If you've got it, flaunt it" is something that the more flamboyant among my people, gay men, have long lived by (tho I don't know if we came up with the expression). Newark's got it, but doesn't flaunt it. Why not?

People in Manhattan can look across the Hudson and see the towers of Jersey City, Hoboken, and Edgewater, but rarely venture to our side of the River. From higher floors, they can even see Downtown Newark, most days. When I was living in Manhattan (for only 35 years, tho), I didn't much care to think about venturing into NJ, and I'm from NJ, and had to go 'home' to see family at least twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I even LIKE my family, smart, funny people I always had a great time with. We'd stand around in the kitchen, at my Grandmother's place mostly, have a few drinks, tell our best jokes, and laff and laff. I know that not all families have that kind of camaraderie and happy, easy relations. For some families, "the holidays" are filled with dread and angst. Not mine. You should be so lucky as to have a family like mine.

Now we're scattered, in the Houston area of Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Long Beach, California — aside from me. I remain in the Newark/NYC area, where I think we were all born. This Christmas, the others are getting together at my brother Alan's place in Las Vegas. Not me. I don't care to travel anymore, and my kitties wouldn't care to be alone, tho I made sure they always have other kitties to keep them company. I'm the only one who lives with no one of his species in this house. But that's fine. Most of what I do requires me to be alone for hours and hours a day anyway, so I wouldn't be very good company much of the time.

The one big thing about Newark I would change is the weather. But New York has much the same weather, except one or two degrees cooler.

Newark is a great place to live, and a fine place to visit. But who knows that, other than you(s) and me? Newark has grace, and style. Verve, talent, manners. I don't want to wax too lyrical, lest people who don't know Newark think I'm exaggerating. One big reason I show lots and lots of fotos is so people can see for themselves that I am not exaggerating.

Samer Fouad in front of his oranges and orange circles design, which speak to the logo of the Tritonic creative agency, which is located at 239 Washington Street in Downtown Newark, not in the Oranges. (People outside this area won't know what "The Oranges" are (municipalities in Newark's (Essex) county). Nor will they understand why there is an Orange, East Orange, West Orange, and South Orange (2 of which partially surround my part of Newark, Vailsburg) but no North Orange. Many New Jerseyans might also wonder why there are Oranges in NJ (and an Orange County, NYS), rather than Florida. But the "Orange" in these names is the House of Orange, a royal family originally from France that became the royal house of the Netherlands and then, thru William of Orange, who married Mary of England, the royal house of England (and thus do we have the College (actually, now, University) of William and Mary in Virginia, second oldest college in the U.S., after only Harvard and ahead of Princeton — which was founded in Elizabeth and spent about a decade in Newark before settling in Princeton.)

"Design Newark" is a wonderful show, but has so many things you'd need to read, not just see, to get the most of, that it's hard to appreciate it all on a casual visit. The best of the designs should, as I said, be on view long-term, either within a few fixed areas or circulating. The materials that need to be read, not just viewed, should be, at appropriate size, in places where people have to wait for other things, like a train or bus (for instance, inside the bus shelters on both sides of Market Street at Penn Station), so people who are bored will have something to see and read, and can find themselves engaged by things they hadn't thought about.

People who regularly find themselves in such locations might look forward to reviewing the next day what they weren't able to read today. Some might even wait for the next bus or train if they won't be there tomorrow. Some of the pieces in the "Design Newark" show are that good. They make you think. And people who are happy with Newark and feel pride but don't realize that there are LOTS of Newarkers who feel pride in Newark will be glad to see these thought-provoking pieces.

The posters that show The Bottle, the water tower shaped like a soda/beer bottle that once stood over a bottling plant on South Orange Avenue at Grove Street, reminded me of something I proposed here November 27, 2005. (I have restored to that post the fotos that AOL erased.)

Moreover, there are wonderful things one can do with big structures today. Look at the new buildings in Times Square that have enormous electronic displays that wrap around the structures and constantly change images like gigantic TV screens. Couldn't something like that be done to the Bottle?
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If international businesses locate in the commercial development, how about a painted world map around its circular form, with lites outlining the countries represented, and a flashing beacon with changing colors hiliting Newark's geographic location?
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Even if the Bottle is taken down, it would presumably be best to have it painted to briten its appearance more than just preserve it. We could hold an international art contest to decide what to paint it, and maybe get a major paint or art-supply company to sponsor it. Sherwin-Williams has a major facility in Newark, on the Passaic. Maybe they'd like their paint to briten the Bottle and would be willing to supply the paint for free, as a public-relations coup.
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In fact, we could hold an international contest for architects and architecture schools, artists and art schools, advertising and public-relations firms to submit ideas for use of the Bottle. Now. Hurry!
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The Bottle is a giant, three-dimensional billboard that could be used in many different ways, and truly savvy marketing people would see its potential. The only thing that stands in the way of saving and making great use of the Bottle is a lack of imagination. I hope Newarkers aren't that unimaginative but will find a way to prevent the Bottle from vanishing into history.

I saw Matt Gosser at the St. Philip's Academy and Green Drinks talks (see below), mentioned the posters about the Bottle (the first show of his that I saw was the Ar+cheology exhibition about the former bottling plant/brewery), and asked if he had thought about using the Bottle with LEDs or whatever they are that can create constantly shifting images and words. He hadn't, but liked the idea. Maybe the Bottle, so altered, can become one of several eye-catching artworks at entryways to the city. We could even have a tower of lite from the top, like the temporary memorial of two blue lites that rose from the site of the former World Trade Center. Our beacon to the sky, however, would be joyous, announcing to everyone for miles around, "Here stands Newark."

This is Matt Gosser, sporting his nifty new haircut by his robot sculpture made from objects found at the late, lamented Westinghouse Building, as I saw him on the upper level of 239. Matt tends to go thru phases in his personal look — not, mind you, as marked as those of Newark fotografer Sandro Gomes, but strikingly different over time nonetheless. This seems to me a good look for Matt. He actually looks slimmer than that in person. I don't like the untucked-shirt look for myself.

The least that could be done is to have the bottle change labels, from Hoffman Soda (orange flavor, or all the flavors once bottled there) to Pabst beer, to all the other former Newark beer brands (Ballantine, Krueger, etc.). Videos could play in progress around the bottle. News headlines, like the old Times Tower in NYC, could alternate at the quarter- or half-hour. Old silent films; new silent films from independent filmmakers. cWOW's New Media artworks. We might even be able to finance the entire project with the most imaginative commercials from advertisers for high-tech devices and other products, especially high-end products and services. Advertising agencies and the corporations whose ads they place might be delited to show their ads on The Bottle and take stills or videos for later print or TV ads. There is SO MUCH, indeed, that could be displayed on an LED(?)-lined Bottle that it bottl... — boggles — the mind. Put a geodesic dome around The Bottle (except perhaps for the top, from which a beacon would shine straight upward) atop a glass-walled pavilion to enclose all-weather seating, and speakers, as would permit even people outside the dome to get a sense of the Bottle's color (or b&w) and dash.

Stairway down to the lower floor of the "Design Newark" art show, where the posters are.

Put the Bottle in a plaza on the Newark side of the Bridge Street Bridge, or between the Clay Street Bridge and I-280 Bridge — somewhere that might properly be regarded as Newark's main face to the outside world. One is tempted to put it at the South Orange Avenue, western entrance to the city from the western 'burbs (especially given that it used to stand beside SOA at Grove Street) but that's not remotely prominent enuf. The poster below proposes a plaza between Penn Station and Prudential Center, which is well inside the city rather than at a geographic border. But it would be the welcoming point for people arriving by train and long-distance buses.

Or we could go for some idiosyncratic siting, such as in Branch Brook Park in the grassy area opposite the Cathedral Basilica, behind the lions, juxtaposing medieval, contemplative splendor and the super-modern world of motion and commerce.
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I'm not clear as to the hours during which the 239 Collective is open, but here is their contact information: 239 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102; (973) 286-1311; GlocallyNewark.com; events@glocallynewark.com.
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St. Philip's and Green Drinks. On November 18th I attended an event at the 239 Collective, where the Design Newark show served as backdrop. Two people talked about St. Philip's Academy and a third spoke of "Green Drinks".
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SPAcademy is a highly unusual private school in the Episcopal tradition at Central Avenue around Bergen Street/1st Street. None of the students' families pays the c. $8,000 yearly tuition. Rather, all of the students are funded by generous, mainly corporate, sponsors. The Academy's new building has a rooftop garden in which students grow veggies for the cafeteria, and thru which they learn "green" principles.

This is one of the things that distinguishes Newark most pointedly from Manhattan, and we should capitalize on that to lure to this city people who want a greener place to live.

The speakers discussed what St. Philip's Academy does and how it works. They spoke below a projected presentation that included fotos. As I looked at the fotos, I became indignant. So when the presentation concluded and the speakers entertained questions, I asked three (paraphrased rather than quoted here). (1) I travel Central Avenue all the time, including that very nite on the way to 239, but do not recall having seen any such academy. Where exactly is it located? (2) Wouldn't a rooftop garden without a greenhouse be pretty much useless in our climate for half the school year? And, most pointedly, (3) The fotos suggest that the student body is all-black. That offends me. Newark is only half-black (54% in the 2000 census, and probably less now). If the student body really is all-black, why is that? And what steps are being taken to fix that? An integrated student body is in itself educational.
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As you might imagine, this last was not the kind of question the speakers expected to get. They conceded that the student body is indeed pretty much all-black, but said that the reason is not an intent to segregate but to serve the local community, which is dominantly black. A woman in the audience, who, I later found out, was (I believe) Joy Tolliver (I have temporarily misplaced her card), an employee of the Academy, said that she agrees that just going to school with different kinds of kids, and maybe going to their house after school, is indeed in itself educational, but the Academy derives its student body from the people who actually apply, the preponderance of whom are from the immediate neighborhood. She said the Academy is always working to improve its programs, and welcomes volunteers to work on, for instance, diversifying the school's community. I spoke with her later and said that maybe the school needs a bus, maybe two buses, to pick up kids from outside the neighborhood and take them to the Academy. She thought that would be great. I said maybe they could find some car (and bus) company to donate a couple of buses to help with diversifying the Academy's student body and thus improving the educational value to its students.

I certainly do not begrudge a free education to black children of minimal means. But black children are not the only children of minimal means in this city. And we do have public schools, which are apparently doing a pretty good job. I have very serious reservations about private education of any kind, and think that perhaps we would do better, as a society, to outlaw all private schooling and home schooling as contrary to public policy, for promoting socioeconomic stratification and personal alienation from society. But if we are to have private education of any kind, it must not discriminate on the basis of race or income, be it for whites and against blacks, or the other way around.
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As for my other questions, the gentleman said that the Academy is near the corner of Central Avenue and Bergen Street (or First Street, as the northern extension of Bergen is called), but there has not been prominent signage, only a small plaque, to indicate that. However, they are soon to unveil big banners to announce the school's presence. So I guess I will be able to find it sometime soon, whereupon I will show fotos here.

I love architectural/city planning things, and this show has a lot of it. In the first foto today, for instance, is a plan showing the area around St. Lucy's Church over time, including the highrise Columbus Homes ("projects", since torn down) and proposed structures not (yet) built, color-keyed. Very interesting and informative.

The growing season of the rooftop garden is, the gentleman said, extended not by a hothouse but by cold frames. The walls around the roof cut winds, and the entire roof receives full sun, so the growing season is extended, perhaps by as much as a full hardiness zone. Newark is in hardiness zone 6. So maybe the factors mentioned above give the garden more like a zone 7 environment (numbers get higher as minimum temperatures get higher).

Green Drinks. The second speaker that nite was a woman who astonished us by saying at one point that she is (half?) Chinese, and felt it important for her children to inherit the culture she grew up with. In any case, she was there to tell us that there are three groups in North Jersey that meet once a month on different days (the fourth whatever of the month) to network with other green-minded individuals to discuss how to make North Jersey more livable for every creature here. The Newark group meets each fourth Monday at 6pm at Rio Rodizio (1034 McCarter Highway, Newark 07102; (973) 622-6221).

View down the stairs to the lower-level exhibition area, past a banner map of one Newark neighborhood made by (architect) Anker West and Newark schoolchildren.

Graffics Program Went Bonkers. Something insane has happened to my graffics program, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. For reasons beyond my comprehension, it starts to show the fotos in directories (esp. the top-level directory/folder), but then erases all the thumbnails! I checked in Windows Explorer, and all the fotos are still there, but Jasc does not present thumbnails of them. Without thumbnails, I cannot call them up to resize them for use here. Curiously, the fotos in some subdirectories/subfolders do appear, normally. So I tried to create a new subdirectory with a different name ("Revd"), then copy the Fixed pix into it, but the program still refused to show the fixed pix.

Another proposal for an artistic gateway, this one with varicolored lites.

I thought maybe the 15 free registry changes I made thru Uniblue's RegistryBooster a few days ago might have done something, but I couldn't see how to restore the backup copy of the registry that that program made. (Uniblue is the company in Malta from which I received an email I discussed here February 26, 2008. Perhaps the very nice lady I exchanged emails with will see this, from her electronic alert service, and can tell me how to restore the backup of my registry that Uniblue created before I let the RegistryBooster make 15 little changes. I don't know that restoring that backup would fix the problem, but it might.

Here's another view of the St. Lucy's area 3D plan. The table was moved toward the back of the main floor in intervening weeks.

One techie advice webpage I saw said one could do a System Restore (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore), so I did that and a restore point of 11/26/10 was suggested. I tried that, waited for the whole process to work, complete with reboot. It did not fix the problem. So I Uninstalled Jasc completely, after I made sure I had the original installation CD. Uninstall took longer than I expected. Then I rebooted to clear everything, and reinstalled from the CD. Nope. Then I went to an earlier System Restore point, 11/24/10, and repeated the process. Nope. Some new files I put into the top-level directory in recent hours would appear, but nothing else. I needed to get up this long-delayed post about the soon-to-close "Design Newark" show, so had to consider a couple of temporary fixes.

Fuzzy, low-lite picture of seating to be created from milk crates and wood slats. One crate makes a single seat; several adjoining make a bench.

First, I could upload the full-size fotos and have Picasa resize them in its display code. But I didn't want to use up my Picasa online storage space with full-size fotos. Then I looked for free foto-resizing software and downloaded that. I also discovered that I could email (to myself) a resized version of fotos thru Windows Photo Gallery. I could then store the resized foto to my hard drive. But that all-around-the-mulberry-bush and time-consuming process did not appeal to me. Still, it's good to know there's more than one way around this momentary (?) difficulty, and I am glad to share what I've learned with other people who may want to know how to resize fotos if they don't have an installed graffics program that will do that. Windows Photo Gallery is built into Vista, and possibly also into XP and Windows 7. ("XP", by the way, is the abbreviation for my political organization, the Expansionist Party of the United States.)

Two-dimensional artists' renderings of stages in the Morris Adjmi design of the Newark Arena, now known as the Prudential Center.

Then I thought to search CNET.com's Downloads area for a free graffics program as such, and saw one that has been downloaded more than 53 million times and is well reviewed, IrfanView. I recently encountered the name Irfan in a context that suggested everybody should know what it is. So I downloaded that. As I was doing that, it occurred to me that some kind of software came with my Olympus cameras and my Canon video-and-stills camera, but I don't know where I put the installation disks, nor did I explore what they can do, since Jasc was working fine at the time.

3D model of one stage in the design of PruCenter.

Trying to fix the Jasc problem stole 4 hours from my day. Looking for alternatives took an additional hour and a quarter. And trying to learn to use Irfan and overcome mistakes took another hour and a half. This is the kind of thing that keeps happening, as keeps me from updating this blog as often as I'd like.

This poster considers what might be done in rehabilitating or replacing the Pulaski Skyway. I would like to see either the whole thing or portions painted different colors from dreary black. We could even paint designs, discontinuous in fact but which the mind's eye could connect, much as the pictures shown on the video marquee on the Mulberry Street side of PruCenter are actually discontinuous, separated by panels at least a foot or two wide, but the viewer nonetheless forms a coherent picture from the separated panels. The Skyway might become one of the longest works of art in the world.

At present, I can use Irfan for what Jasc won't do. But I need to know why Jasc went crazy, because I know how to use Jasc, and have dozens of topics and well over 100 fotos to deal with in topics now backed up. Jasc also has a perspective correction tool, which Irfan does not. So I can, in Jasc, redraw some starkly nonrectangular posters and such into neat rectangles. The posters shown here that are not remotely rectangular were resized but not perspective-corrected, in Irfan. I have been so often delayed in putting up reports of art events that I got an email from someone who asked "Are you still attending Newark art openings?" I answered that I am indeed, but have been having some computer problems.

Proposed directional signs to help strangers navigate Newark's unfamiliar streets. The designer/s clearly feel that current signage is inadequate and insufficiently pleasing to the eye. I'm not inclined to argue the point. My view is that what must be seen should be worthy of being seen.

Among the topics backed up that I hope to tend to this week (if I can overcome these computer problems) are the Metro 27 show at cWOW (Happiness (a young woman's name), I haven't forgotten you); the Robeson "As I Do" show; Solos Project #6 (Ibrahim Ahmed); Rupert Ravens' current show, "Outsight In"; the Glass Book project at the Newark Public Library; and a very long-delayed entry, with video, of the Newark Boys Chorus concert at the Newark Museum. That's six of dozens of backed-up topics for which I have fotos. There are, as well, several Open Doors 2010 events from the end of September for which I have lots of pix to show. That's not urgent, however, in that all those shows are closed, so posts about them would merely constitute a record of the wonderful things people who did not attend, missed (but I was lucky enuf to see). I'll try to get online, coverage of shows that remain open, well before they close. Y'all come back now, heeya?

Fuzzy picture, due to lower lite than I assumed. Silly me.

Where Have All the Sparrows Gone? I have noticed that this past hugely unrepresentative summer, with 31 days above 90° and a drought, had stripped my semi-suburban neighborhood, Vailsburg, of the birds, even sparrows, that I was accustomed to seeing and hearing (starting around 4:30am). Once the weather overnite got near freezing, I filled my birdfeeder, hoping that such birds as are still around would find that stash and keep themselves strong either for the flite south or for overwintering. Three days later, only about a third of the food has been eaten. Last year, I'd have to refill the feeder every day. The bulk of birds have just flown, so to speak, out of Vailsburg. Perhaps they found a more congenial environment near some body of water. There are none around here, tho I understand that there is a waterfall in South Mountain Reservation three or four miles from me. I have heard (Canada?) geese honking as they flew, in formation, south over the next block or a bit farther east. But I haven't seen any sparrows, grackles, starlings, blue jays, or other birds I would expect to eat the cracked corn I put out (and I do care). It will save me money on birdseed if they have abandoned this area this year. But I like having the birds around, and my cats like watching them thru the windows.

Bamberger's Clock

I mentioned Tuesday that there is a nonworking clock sticking diagonally out from the second floor of the Halsey Street at Market Street corner of the old Bamberger's building. Gaetano, who has a peculiar genius for finding things of interest, sent me this old foto that shows that clock, when Bamberger's was a going concern. Judging from the cars and trolleys, it appears to be no later than the early 1930's.

He's not sure where he found this foto, but thinks it's OK to use. If someone out there owns this foto and does not want it to appear here, just let me know and I'll take it down. Or I can put up a credit and link to their website, whichever they'd prefer.
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Here's a closer view that shows the clock better. I assume it worked way back then.

Newark's Time

Public clocks have a long tradition in the Western world. Some are very extravagant, with statuary figures striking bells. We don't have anything so distinguished as Munich's Rathaus-Glockenspiel or London's Big Ben, but there are some working and some nonworking public clocks in Newark. In my neighborhood, nearby church bells (from Sacred Heart of Vailsburg? now closed?) chime at noon, if not at other hours, but I don't know of any public clock to which those bells are attached. Here's a foto of the clock on the façade of 1180 Raymond Boulevard, in its elegant setting. My camera showed the time I took the foto as 12:28pm.

I showed here April 25th the nonworking four-face clock in the steeple of Trinity & St. Philip's Episcopal Cathedral. Across Broad Street from there is a nonworking square clock on a stanchion in the sidewalk. I took a picture of it, but can't find it. I don't know if any foto-album software creates a searchable database of tags by which I can find fotos when I need them. I thought Picasa for one's own computer (as distinct from the online album version) might have such a capacity, but when I read Help on "tags", it didn't seem to have that functionality, so I was not about to put tags on thousands of fotos if I couldn't generate a list. Now I see that Windows Photo Gallery within Vista is supposed to have that capability, so I'll tag a few dozen fotos and see if it works.

Closeup of 1180 clock. Note that the time shown is a minute later, but still wrong (it should show 12:29).

There is a blank two-sided clock on the old Bamberger's building at Market and Halsey Streets. Now it is only an ornate brown thing sticking out diagonally at the corner of the building on the second floor. I don't have a picture of it. Well, perhaps I do, but I wouldn't know where to find it on my computer, and I think I've lost a few hundred fotos to old computers that no longer work.

Any Newarker can see where the clock above stands. It keeps good time. Unfortunately, it is largely blocked by trees.

There's a new four-faced clock in East Orange at Sanford Street and Central Avenue that looks great and keeps good time. I am at present one of those people who finds public clocks useful, because I have two or three wristwatches all with drained batteries, so have to pull out my cellfone to get the time. I'll change the batteries in my watches someday. In the immortal words of the old Federal Express commercial in which an old guy pours semi-solid coffee from a carafe, "Any day now. Any day. Any day."
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P.S. I reread Help in Picasa and experimented with tagging fotos, then searching. Both Picasa and Windows Photo Gallery will allow me to find fotos by tags, after all. So now all I have to do is tag thousands of fotos not already used here. What fun. The interface in WPGallery seems cleaner and easier to use than the one in Picasa. Bizarrely, removing a tag from the list in WPG appears to be almost impossible. I found a Help article online that says you have to edit the Registry. I followed the steps. The tag at issue disappeared from the Registry, but not from WPG. Why would anyone design a program and not allow you to delete a tag just by, say, right-clicking on it and pressing the Del key? Microsoft does what Microsoft does, for reasons only Microsoft understands.
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WPG indicates "38517 items in this view". Windows Explorer says there are 39,446 files in my "Pix" directory, which includes two complete sets of most of my fotos, "Raw" and "Fixed". "Fixed" fotos that I have resized smaller for use here are then put into a "used" directory. I've got about 5,400 fotos online, and the 5,400 "Fixed" fotos they came from, that don't need to be tagged. So that would leave a mere 28,000 or so fotos unaccounted for. Ah! I have older fotos archived as well as in their own current directories, so that cuts the number of Raw and Fixed fotos by about 40%, and only the Fixed fotos need tags. So maybe I have only about 6,000 fotos that need tags. I'd better get busy.

Weird Incident (from last year)

I have not mentioned this publicly before, because it was so bizarre, and unrepresentative of Newark arts, but I have, several times since it occurred, run into the man responsible, and he has always thereafter been very pleasant, even unusually pleasant, to me.

Ernest Shukara Walker is a gifted artist who had, last I knew, given up on making a living from the arts and "taken a day job". In mid-January 2009, I fotograffed a fine painting of his in an art show at the NJIT gallery, about Nikola Tesla. I had seen a seated statue of Tesla at Niagara Falls, when I traveled there with my (late) father (who was also named "Ernest"). That fine statue was just outside the entrance to a walking tour of the area near the base of the Falls, which my father and I ventured to in raincoats. After I saw Ernest Walker's painting, I did some online research about Nikola Tesla, and discovered that he was somewhere between very odd and out of his f* mind.
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At the close of the exhibition, when artists were removing their works from the walls in preparation to taking them home, I touched a nerve with ESWalker, in landing unrelentingly hard on Tesla's bizarreness. Instead of "walk"ing away or verbally reproaching me, ESWalker slapped me right across the face. Other people were at the same table when this occurred, but no one near had any idea of why it occurred. I never run from physical confrontation, and was stunned by what I felt was Walker's extreme over-reaction to my criticism of the brilliant loon Nikola Tesla. He told me I should leave, but, as I say, I never leave a physical confrontation. My father taught me that: never give in to a bully, never take crap from anybody, but always stand up for yourself. I did not slap him in return, but merely stood my ground. The people around us were very surprised by his behavior, but it went no further.
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Ever since that odd occurrence, Ernest has always been very nice to me on the several occasions when we have run across each other. So he was apparently just overcome with some bizarre and irresistible impulse to stand up for what might for him have been a hero, the brilliant but mad scientist Nikola Tesla. Matt Gosser, Director of the gallery in which this incident occurred, who was sitting nearby when it occurred but had no idea WHY it occurred, said it might at least make an interesting blog post. I did not, at the time (January 2009), want to mention it. But now, since Ernest and I have been on very cordial terms in the several times we have met since then, I am mentioning it. I imagine he is a little embarrassed by it. It didn't hurt me. I stood my ground. And we're over it. But it does have to be mentioned, because things like that just should not occur in Newark arts. I urge Ernest Walker to return to creating wonderful art. He has it in him, and, unlike his aggressions, his artistic creativity needs a socially useful outlet.

'Stand By Me'

I do not generally put up more than one post on this blog per day. And, unfortunately, I have no fotos to illustrate this addition.
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I have now fixed all the fotos I had to fix from Thursday on, in order that I might address issues that arose since then. I also managed to put off intense feelings about various things long enuf to put up a blogpost about Victory Outreach Church on Sunday. I even managed to put up a blogpost about a very odd incident that happened in late January 2009. But I find that I cannot move on to put up anything else (of the many topics I want to discuss) because I have personally needed to play, over and over again, the most magnificent music video I have ever encountered in my entire life.
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I sing, and always have sung, in choruses and choirs from childhood until adulthood. But I just don't like music well enuf to work at it. In fact, there are times when I cannot STAND music.
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I know from outside judgment that my voice is not ordinary, since I went outside my local school, where standards are lax and just about everybody who wants to sing is let into a chorus. No, my older sister, Sue Ann, and I ventured to Little Ferry (Bergen County — or was it Little Falls? I have never been able to keep those two towns clear in my head) to audition for the Bergen County Junior Choir in the 1950s. Sue Ann was supposed to be the only one of us who tried out, with me as only a possibility if I felt up to it (I was very timid about auditioning), but we both ended up auditioning — and both made it. That Choir was terrific, and we were both very proud (and humbled) to have made it into the Choir. It did very good work. We learned, for instance, Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers". The Bergen County Junior Choir was very, very good, and both Sue Ann and I were part of it.
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All thru school, I was in choruses or, more grandiosely, "choirs" — except for ONE year, when my voice changed, from boy soprano or tenor to baritone. Imagine, if you will, what I went thru. I auditioned for the Middletown Township (Monmouth County) High School choir, having always made every single chorus or choir I ever auditioned for. I sang "June Is Busting Out All Over" from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel — and my voice broke ("busted"). Fitting, but humiliating. Oh, yes, I qualified for the top-line chorus at MTHS the year after, but there is no way the ego emerges unbruised from failing on the high note of "June Is Busting Out" — and your voice is busting — "All Over", the year before. Teenagers have notoriously tender egos, and when something you have always been able to rely upon, a fine singing voice, cracks — well, jeez. I survived. But that might well have been my very first experience with humiliation regarding something I had theretofore been very confident about.
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I made chorus the next year, and made as well the Monmouth County Civic Chorus after graduating from high school, tho the demands of my job kept me from performing in that Chorus's performance of Iolanthe. I have never, since then, sung in an organized group. Does Essex County have a nonprofessional chorus? I don't know. Would I qualify for one? Probably, but not necessarily, after decades of not singing in a group regularly. Performing onstage can be an important part of growing up. I did it several times in choruses, and once in a mini-theatrical piece, in which I had to stage-kiss a girl. Fortunately, it was only a stage-kiss (phony), not a real kiss. We had to drink imitation-alcohol (watered-down Coke) from little glasses filled from a decanter, then kiss. The student body was there for the performance, and were wowed/appalled by our kiss! She was a very nice girl and nobody near me said anything, so it went by without scarring me, since there was no real kissing involved. I have felt, decades after, like Jackie Gleason stage-kissing Audrey Meadows and then declaring for all the world to hear,"Baby, you're the greatest." Had I been tasked to kiss a young man, I would have been elated, but we didn't do that in 1961 or '62.
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I could have, and arguably should have, done lots of things differently in high school, but I would not have turned out to be me. For instance, I offered the term "Gay Pride" in 1970 (almost 8 full years after high-school graduation) in circumstances that might never have occurred had I tended to my P's and Q's in high school and been accepted into Princeton, which was my first choice of college. "Gay Pride" is the only thing I am genuinely "famous" for, tho this blog has, in recent years, given me a bit of recognition. How would the world have done without my contribution, "Gay Pride"? I cannot say, and doubt that anyone else could either. Would anyone else have put forth the same term around the same time? No one had before, so there is no reason to think anyone else would have done so just then. Indeed, no one else has ever claimed credit for that term in all the time, 40 years, that has passed since then. Perhaps I was indispensable to that development, at that time.
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Thus, if I had gone to Princeton in 1962 rather than to the City University in 1967, there might never have been "Gay Pride" anything. Such is life, a series of odd, unpredictable events whose importance is never known until later. So maybe I had to go to a college where I met no one rich, and made no contacts that would serve me well into the future, and ended my college education getting a degree of little economic value at a time when demand for college graduates was down for the first time in seven years.
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Thus has my life ever been. I got my real-estate salesperson's license just as the housing bubble burst. (By the way, if you want to buy a house, or even rent an apartment in a really nice, upscale building, in Newark, you should contact me so I can put you in touch with my broker. If you buy or rent thru him, I get a piece of his commission, which is all to the good. And you will have a disinterested party to let you know if what you have seen is representative of what is available to rent or buy.)
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It would seem that I am not on this Earth to profit from what happens in my time, but only to help with the things that people need to have done. That's fine. I want to help. Heretofore, I've done OK on my own. Now I'm old and dependent upon Social Security and other public benefits, which the Republicans who have taken over government at the NJ state level, and part of the Federal level, do not want to live up to. It's sad. I'll get by, because I own a house so can get a reverse mortgage, or sell half my land so someone can build a narrow townhouse on it. But I am horrified that this country has turned so ugly and cruel to people of modest means. Never would I, a Sixties activist, have foreseen that this country would become so vile in my lifetime. We thought we were changing everything for the better, permanently and irreversibly. Apparently not. Will younger people pick up the torch and set fire to the stuctures the rich and super-rich are creating to destroy the poor and middle-class? We can only hope.
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Getting back to choral music, I sing well, but mine is not a soloist's voice, only a voice that almost any chorus would be glad to include, strong, mellow, on pitch. I can sing religious music, or backup to rock or blues. My voice is rather too sweet and gentle to be front and center. Or is that just my self-effacing personality talking? I can hit the right pitch in one and a half octaves, but some choral work requires two octaves. I can't read music, in part because I never liked music enuf to subject myself to the discipline of learning to read it. I'm an amateur, with a pleasant and pitch-perfect voice. A young woman I worked with for a couple of years was astounded when I sang Christmas carols at an office party. She said she would never have believed that a sound so pleasing would come out of my mouth. I am certainly not a musical star — unless members of a chorus can somehow become musical stars — but I do have a singing voice that does not embarrass me, and I have high standards.
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Newark's own Carrie Jackson, a jazz stalwart if not even great local star, conducts a weekly instructional workshop at Skipper's Plane Street Pub on Sunday afternoons (from 1 to 3pm), for people who aspire to sing professionally. She evaluates their talent and gives cues as to what to do, what not to do, etc. I trust she also tells people who appear, presently, to have no singing talent whatsoever, to give up on a singing career, or that they need, if anything can be salvaged, to take special lessons before the instructor (she) will say it's hopeless.
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I, and many other people, could sing any part of the music video I would like you to see. What is remarkable about that video is how seamlessly the many different performances, from different parts of the U.S. and world, are edited into a single magnificent song. All of us who sing are jealous. We love what they have done, but wish we were part of it. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM. Watch, listen, enjoy.

Victory Outreach

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA I show a foto I took, while waiting at a red lite, of a storefront church on Bloomfield Avenue at Bloomfield Place (the very beginning, on the south, of Bloomfield Avenue). Newark's Victory Church is part of an international group of churches of that same denomination.

86 Broadway
Newark, NJ
07104-2504
United States Victory Outreach Newark
PO Box 2449
Bloomfield, NJ
07003-0995
United States

Contact:
Church Telephone Number: 973-531-8024
Church Fax: 973-531-8024
Email: vonewark@optonline.net

Victory Outreach began in Los Angeles in 1967. Now it claims "over 600 churches and ministries, with locations across America and in 30 countries from the Philippines to the Netherlands". Newark was chosen to be one of the cities in which Victory Oureach reached out.

Artists Talk and Solo(s) Project #6 Debuts, Today

All but the last of the fotos today are from the "Details..." art show.

There are artist talks at the College of Art and Design (COAD) Gallery at NJIT this afternoon, and an opening art reception at Solo(s) Project House this evening.

[Matt Gosser's email to his announcements list said] I'd like to invite you to an artist talk and closing reception for our current exhibition: Details, Details, Details.

The event is on Saturday, November 20, and artists Roberto Osti, Daniel Brophy, Gocha Tsinadze and curator Matthew Gosser will be fielding questions about the exhibition and the artwork included. Light refreshments will also be served. Talk begins at 5pm.... last chance to check out some amazing artwork by 3 truly talented artists.

That "...." was Matt's punctuation, not my ellipsis. I didn't delete anything.

Here's the info I got by email about the Solo(s) show.

SOLO PROJECT #6: Ibrahim Ahmed III, "In the Shade of Light"
November 20, 2010 – January 3,2011

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 20, 2010
7:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Refreshments provided by Hell’s Kitchen Lounge
Live entertainment by Accidental Seabirds & DJ EZRAKH
After Party at Hell’s Kitchen Lounge

Solo Project #6: "In the Shade of Light," showcases artist Ibrahim Ahmed III and his work with found objects, specifically abandoned windows. Ahmed uses cross hatching-like patterns that reference childhood memories. While living on the island of Bahrain during the first Gulf War, the American embassy contacted all its citizens and gave the[m] tips on how to better prepare homes in case a bombing were to happen. [I suspect the thinking was not that the U.S. would bomb Bahrainm deliberately or accidentally but that Saddam might strike out at Iraq's neighbors in the chaos.] Taping windows in a cross hatching pattern, they were told, would prevent glass from shattering during a bomb blast.

"There was something about this experience that made me gravitate to windows, along with the many mosques I prayed in while growing up in the Middle East."

Ahmed explains this combination evokes the power of vast transparency, along with the ability to use shadows that create depth that invoke a spiritual experience, similar to that experience in a mosque adorned with geometric patterns on stain glass. His quest to understand the spirit has been the driving force in his work; a means of worship through visual expression.

"In the Shade of Light" is a loose reference to the controversial book, written by Sayyid Qutb, "In the Shade of the Quran." The Quran has been, as much as spiritual guide, as it has been a visual one also for Ahmed. He replaces "Quran", with word "light" emphasizing the result of the juxtaposition of light, shade and depth.

"In the Shade of Light" will honor the Academy St. Firehouse located at 77 Academy St. Founder, Dr. Terrence Zealand introduce[d] Ahmed to art, noting an untrained talent and giving him a forum to work in, eventually even asking him to teach an art class at the Firehouse. "He was and is a mentor and support system, when I didn't have one, and for that, I am forever grateful for his faith in me," Ahmed says. A portion of all sales during the life of the exhibition will be donated to The Academy St. Firehouse.

Closeup of one of the many small works as seen above.

I discussed the work of the Firehouse on September 8, 2008, and some of the art in the second half of that post might have been his, but I didn't get ID's. He recognized me at some later art event somewhere and said I had shown something of his, but I'm not sure which. I also showed an assemblage of his at Rupert Ravens Contemporary (7th foto of November 2, 2009).
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I saw Matt Gosser, Director of the COAD Gallery, at the talks about St. Philip's Academy and Green Drinks at the 239 Collective on Thursday (discussion yet to come), and thought at the time I might go. But I had an unexpected 'Misadventure in Manhattan' Friday, from which I didn't get home until 7:40am Saturday, so won't be attending after all. I will probably be able to make it to at least part of the Solo(s) reception in the evening. (I'll put up the details of Friday's odd travail (in Manhattan) dated yesterday, and add a note atop whatever entry that is current when I get it done.)

Artworks in lobby outside Solo(s) Project House. If anyone can provide the names of the artworks and artists in the fotos today, I will be glad to add that info to this entry for the information of future readers, since these blog entries stay up for a long time.

New Schools Stadium Progress Pix

Last Wednesday I passed by the construction site of the new Schools Stadium, and saw big progress from last time I took fotos, so pulled off onto a sidestreet to take new pix.

As I was headed back to my car, a heard someone shout something. When I turned around, I saw a youngish black guy smiling 80 or more feet away and looking at me. Tho I did not initially understand, I reconstructed, "It's coming along!" Yes, it sure is — and I apologize to the guy who shouted that in my direction (tho he might have been more specific, "The stadium sure is coming along, isn't it?").

He will likely never see this response to his query, but I hope he does see that I did not willfully ignore what he said. Indeed, if I had immediately understood what he said, I would have walked over and interviewed him as to what he thought of what he sees. At the time, however, I had to get to Staples to send a fax to the Newark Municipal Court to enter a not-guilty plea to a parking ticket.