Packard Lofts

As I walked to the art display at Symphony Hall on the last day of Open Doors '11 (see discussion yesterday), I chanced to see a new apartment complex in two adjoining, renovated buildings on Broad Street near East Kinney Street (Broad apparently being the dividing line between East and West Kinney).

Packard Lofts employs the stylized font of the old Packard car company. That luxury car was known, among other things, for spare tires stylishly mounted in housings on the front fenders. My mother had a Packard for some years (before I was old enuf to remember), and loved it. The disappearance of Packard, as of Studebaker, which took it over, is due to the indiscriminate monstrousness of the free-enterprise system, which destroys good things equally with bad. Often, what survives is not the best but only the best-backed, financially.

The Packard Lofts buildings used to house a Packard dealership, and now offer luxury housing rather than luxury cars. I hadn't heard one word about this apartment project. I just happened to walk past it and see how clean and new these distinguished old buildings looked, then saw the sign that they are ready for occupancy as new loft residences.

I have no idea how expensive those apartments are, nor whether they are rentals or condos, but I'm glad to see someone working on new, upscale housing to bring prosperous people to Downtown Newark. Many such new residents will need 2D art to hang on their new, bare walls, or 3D art to fill corners or foyers, which could prove a boon for Newark art galleries. I imagine that apartments in the Packard Lofts complex will be substantially less expensive than comparable apartments in Manhattan, Hoboken, or Jersey City. They are perhaps a two-minute walk from Symphony Hall in one direction and Solo(s) Project House in the other; and a 15-minute walk from Newark Penn Station (and its quick connections to Downtown and Midtown Manhattan via PATH and NJTransit trains), NJPAC, and the Newark Museum. There are as well buses to many places that stop on Broad Street right outside the front door.

Open Doors '11, Part I: Symphony Hall

This is a post about Newark arts. People who, like my friend Gaetano, aren't interested in things "artsy-fartsy", are forewarned that not only today's but other posts to follow in the next few days will sum up my experience of this year's Open Doors artstravaganza. But they will all bear headings that include "Open Doors". Posts without those words will not be about our annual, cram-jammed art weekend.

Tho I would ideally like to do my reports on this year's Newark Arts Council's artswhirl in chronological order, the first event I got to, the Barat Foundation's "Creation Nation" Newark Arts Parade, is complicated by the need not just to integrate fotos and text, as usual, but also to combine 13 video snippets into one video overview. That in turn is complicated by the fact that I arrived about five minutes late, so had to rush to catch up to the head of the parade which was two blocks away. The camera bounced as I moved, and I have to decide whether to give up on the first couple of bouncy vids or if a mere notation of explanation would suffice (along with a plea to viewers to hang in for the chunks that are steady).
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So I'll skip to the second event I attended, a group show by three women at an improvised art gallery in two rooms of the Symphony Hall building, outside the theater area.

I took some pictures of the outside of the entrance to the main auditorium, which was not open. The pleasant (black) guard sitting outside, by a sign about the art show, asked if I knew of the history of the building, and I said I did. He mistakenly(?) said it opened as a mosque, when, I believe, it was actually just called the "Mosque Theater" — tho why it should have been called that, I do not know.

This foto, of the façade of Symphony Hall, is marred by lite from behind. I should have walked to the far side to avoid that, but I had already done a lot of walking, and my knees protested that enuf was enuf, esp. since I had to walk at least back to the Four Corners to catch a bus home, and perhaps a lot more if my camera's battery held out.

Two display cases flank the entrance. They both contain only the Greek drama and comedy masks. That is a preposterous waste of display space that could be used to present something of the history of the building and the famous performers who have appeared there.

One might be given over to a collage with text about the "Mosque Theater" era, and the other to the "Newark Symphony Hall" era. The NAC could sponsor and judge a competition to design such displays. Different artists might fill the two different cases.

A fine chandelier (lantern?) is centered over the entryway, and you can see an elegant ceiling beyond.

An elegant mailbox (perhaps 18" or 24" tall, at most) is on the front wall to the left. I don't know if it is in use for collections, but it appears to have a shiny new keyhole area. Mailboxes of any kind are few and far between in Newark. I still don't know, after more than 11 years living here, if letter carriers are supposed to pick up outgoing mail from the front of houses. We didn't even have that service in suburban Middletown Township, Monmouth County. So why would I feel we have it in a city like Newark? Consequently I dare not just leave something stamped and on the porch if it is important that it reach its destination. Rather, I feel that I must travel several blocks to the mailboxes outside the Vailsburg Post Office.

Beyond the left wall where the mailbox stands is a door to a TV studio run by the City.

As I was taking these fotos, one of the artists came out and conferred with the guard about moving inside, one of the hand-lettered signs (that said something like "Gallery Open"), that was leaning against one of the Hall's Ionic columns on the inside of the sidewalk. I think there was a second on the outside, facing the street. I told her I thought it was probably better to leave it there, where people who did not look inside the windows might see it.
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That might have been a bum steer, and if it was, I apologize (too late, sadly). There should indeed have been displayed in the window a sign, computer printed, that said something like "Free Art Show Open Today", with an arrow toward the entrance.

That artist, Ruth Bauer Neustadter, was disgusted that so few people had stopped into the show, and was especially furious that the printed calendar of events and guide handed out by the NAC did not include their show. The first nite, Friday, wasn't so bad, she said, with about 40 people. Saturday, however, saw only 8, all day. And Sunday wasn't doing much better. She plainly had a point. Symphony Hall is far from most other galleries that participated in Open Doors, but only one block from Solo(s) Project House. Did the NAC arrange for there to be signs at Solo(s) and Symphony Hall directing people to both venues, to create synergy between them? Indeed, now that I think about it, there should, in future Open Doors events, be directional signs outside every venue and shuttle stop with arrows to other venues reasonably nearby, with distances. Picture those posts on Pacific Islands during World War II with arrows labeled "San Francisco", "Honolulu", "New York", "Chicago", "Tokyo", "Manila", etc., with miles to each, or comparable poles in Europe pointing to U.S. cities, Berlin, London, Paris, etc., climbing high up the post. NAC versions need not be so chaotic, but, then again, why not capture that exact feel with directional signs that show the richness of the Open Doors event and even overpower visitors with a potent display of how many venues are participating?
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I was sure there are fotos of such signposts online — and thinking that McHale's Navy, which is now on Antenna TV locally (channel 11-4, 2:00 and 2:30pm), might show them. But I can't stand that show, so haven't looked for them there. I did, however, find a great example, which you can see below. Note the second sign down on the right! This is a Department of Defense foto, so I assume that it is public-domain, that is, that taxpayers are free to use fotos generated with their tax dollars.

Solo(s) may or may not have been open Sunday. The sandwich board that is usually outside when it has receptions was not on display. Nor was there any sign outside Solo(s) pointing to the Symphony Hall show ("...one block south"). Such a sign would have helped Solo(s) bring people in too, in making them aware that there was more than one place to go in the same vicinity, so they need not rush off elsewhere.

There were two exhibit areas in Symphony Hall, a small front room with windows onto the sidewalk, and a larger, windowless room. Above, Ruth consented to pose for me by one of her works, on the wall near the entrance to the exhibit from just off the street by 10 feet or so. Below is a wall of her paintings in the larger room.

This next view shows a wider view of the larger room with its striking dark ceiling. By this time, the battery icon in my camera's monitor was flashing red, indicating low power.

I managed to get in this next picture of another area of the larger room. That there is only one person in this view (artist Kylie Lefkowitz; see two fotos of her work at my post of May 14, 2010) is not the fault of the venue, which is fine, but of the publicists at or hired by the NAC. The venue should be used in future Open Doors events, but tied in to other venues nearby.

I also managed to get this foto of the small display area with windows. Then I had to turn the camera off because the battery was almost completely drained.

As I walked toward the bus at Market Street to head home to charge the battery, I was able to take a very few more fotos because the battery came back a bit after I turned the camera off. But I couldn't take pix at any other Open Doors venue until I had made an 8½-mile roundtrip by bus and taken an hour to charge the battery.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Fotos today are of the view from the Newark Arts Council's group show last Sunday, on the 14th floor of 570 Broad Street. Reflections off the glass of the windows and distortions from acute angles out the windows made it hard or impossible to get sharp fotos, esp. of distance views. The human eye, viewing these scenes directly, would screen out most of these distortions. But you can get a sense of the scene from these poor fotos

Thursday this week, I had to get my car towed from in front of my house to General Tech, 3/4 of a mile away, riding in the cab with the driver. Friday, I had to get to the Essex County social-services office to be trained in the use of my brand-new EBT ("Electronic Benefit Transfer") card for food 'stamps', which are now managed by means of an ATM-like card rather than paper stamps. The qualifying income levels were raised recently, so altho I had not qualified two years ago when first I inquired, I do now ($1,670 per month for a single person is the upper cutoff). (There is no shame in applying for Government benefits you are "entitled" to. The money circulates immediately into the economy, so you are helping not just yourself but others as well.)

Few people work this high up in Newark, so few see the great views that such height affords of this great city. (Some of these fotos are very similar, but all are at least slitely different.) For some reason, the buildings in the distance seem to tilt outward, whereas perspective usually makes them seem to tilt inward. I tried the Perspective Correction Tool in my graffics program, but the result looked scrunched.

Then I went food shopping at the Bergen Street Pathmark — over the parking lot of which flew 7 or more seagulls moving too fast for me to fotograf. Then I went home, partially unloaded the car and had something to eat. Then I went 4 miles Downtown a second time that day, to check out a pre-Halloween event on Edison Place that started at noon, and then the second, and last, Halsey Street Block Party of this year between New Street and Central Avenue. And today is the closing reception for a group show at the Adrienne Wheeler Gallery, from noon to 6pm. The New Newark could drive a young man ragged, and I am feeling more than a little frayed.

The building closest in is Peddie Memorial First Baptist Church, one of the few grand stone Baptist Churches anywhere that have a dome as well as steeple (or, here, two steeples). The building beyond is where Essex County social services are located, the former Firemen's Insurance Company Building.

Here's the description of the Wheeler show that I received from Anne Dushanko-Dobek, one of the artists.

"64/169"
A Resolution, An Exhibition

Curator, Adrienne E. Wheeler

Adrienne Wheeler Gallery and the Newark Arts Council present another installment in a series of exhibitions during 2011 and beyond in celebration of People of African Descent, to recognize the rich cultural diversity of communities on the African continent and in the Diaspora with respect to the following resolution:

In the distance here you can see the headquarters city of the United Nations, New York, past the Red Bulls Arena, a magnificent soccer stadium in Harrison, just over the Passaic River from Downtown Newark.

On 18 December 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the year beginning on 1 January 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent (A/RES/64/169).

"The year aims at strengthening national actions and regional and international cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for their diverse heritage and culture.

The General Assembly encourages Member States, the specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates and existing resources, and civil society to make preparations for and identify possible initiatives that can contribute to the success of the Year."

Adrienne Wheeler Gallery, the Newark Arts Council and the artists presenting their works in this exhibition fully support this resolution, and encourage other artists, galleries, museums, and cultural institutions to join us in promoting this important initiative.

These views of NYC are very oblique to the wall from which I took them. The exhibition space did not occupy a space on the wall closest to Manhattan, from which the view would presumably be much better (and fotos, much easier to take).

Artists:
Manuel Acevedo
Robert Blackburn
Terry Boddie
Jose Camacho
Cicely Cottingham
Laura Cuevas
Victor Davson
Anne Dushanko Dobek
Mel Edwards
Jerry Gant
Gladys Grauer
Ayanna V. Jackson
Ben Jones
Susan Lisbin
Ujima Majied
Carlos Mateu
Ibou Ndoye
Zethray Peniston
Rose Ranov
Eric Rucker
Juan Sanchez
Toni Thomas
vanOs
Manny Vega
Raul Villarreal
Leonard Waldon
Bisa Washington
Irene Wheeler
Nathan Williams

On my way home Friday, I noted that many ugly, old, merely-functional streetlites along Market Street have been replaced by much more decorative and appealing fixtures that tourists would not mind seeing in their fotos of Newark sights. I am particularly pleased that almost all the streetlites around the Old Essex County Courthouse at Market and Springfield Avenues, have been replaced by visually pleasing streetlites, except for one ugly old stanchion that also supports the traffic lites at the apex of the eastward-pointing triangle where Gutzon Borglum's 'Seated Lincoln' statue sits.

I would have taken pictures to show what I am talking about, and then searched for fotos to contrast today's streetlites with those of years past, except that when I got to the Courthouse after dark, the floodlites that have always shown its splendidness were off. What happened? Has the County of Essex decided to save taxpayer dollars in this tuf time by turning off the lites on the Historic Courthouse? I surely hope not, since it is one of the glories of this fine city, and should be available for fotos by tourists 24/7/365. To build a tourist industry, you must be consistent in the hours of tourist attractions. With outdoor attractions, that may well mean illuminating them 24 hours a day.

I had never realized that the J. Massey Rhind statue of George Washington at the southeast corner of Washington Park was in an area demarcated into a pentagon by paths. How appropriate for our first top general. This fine statue, by a renowned sculptor represented in Statuary Hall in the U.S.Capitol, is still not illuminated at nite. It should be.

Rigorous Day

I did make it to the last day of this year's Open Doors artstravaganza, by bus. This was a tuf day for El Craigo. (I don't know if I was first to call myself that, or if it was my "Itty-Bitty Baby Sister", Trina (she's only 65). In any case, it derives from "L. Craig" [Schoonmaker] and is the term I use as the 'show'/producer name for my (currently) 63 videos, mainly about Newark, at Blip.tv. If you go to any of those videos and then click on the blue "El Craigo" below the title of that video, you will be presented with a list of all of them, which you can then navigate to view any you might be interested in.

Today's fotos are of things I saw along the way, between art events, today. Putting together fotos and text to describe the various art events will take a while, but here are things I found of interest while moving from place to place. First, I had never looked closely at the design in the window of 239 Washington Street and only today realized it is a street map showing the building's place.

I took 188  fotos and 13 short videos in the course of the day. Alas, my camera's memory chip couldn't store all that, so cut me off before I could finish covering the marching-band faceoff in Washington Park.
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I left Washington Park and walked to the Radio Shack at 744 Broad Street (Newark's tallest edifice, the National Newark Building), to buy a second camera card. I could have bought a second 4GB chip for $12.99, or an upgrade 8GB chip for $14.99. Naturally, I went with the 8Gig chip, a much better deal. When I looked at my receipt later, I discovered that that chip was on sale, but is usually $19.99. Neato keen.

Chrysanthemums backlited by the sun, on Broad Street. My own chrysanthemums are more spindly, probably from a combination of less lite and poor soil I am gradually enriching year to year with fallen leaves.

I also tried to buy a second battery for my camera, but they didn't have one on hand. I have to go to Radio Shack's, Best Buy's, or someone else's website and order one (or more) for delivery days later, which could do me no good today. I had, weeks ago, bought a battery charger from Radio Shack (for $50, I am appalled to report) that can operate from a household electrical outlet or from a car's cigaret lyter or auxiliary outlet. But I didn't have use of my car today, as either transportation or a battery-charging station, because its entire electrical system is out. Robert Burns's observation that "The best laid plans of mice and men, gang aft agley" remains in force. ("Agley" — which means "awry", pronounced a.ríe, not áu.ree — by the 'wey', has three pronunciations because of its ambiguous spelling: a.gláe, a.glée, and a.glíe. Don't you just love the spelling of English? I don't. I hate it.)

I had never noticed this green-striped building, seen here from New Street. What is it, and why does it have stripes?

I asked the helpful young woman behind the counter to open the packaging (like Fort Knox) for me so I could use the card immediately, which she did, with scissors. (I sometimes provide a little racial descriptor for people I meet in Newark, since, absent such, everyone will visualize their own race when they read "young woman". I like to point out, by implication, how nice most black people are to everyone in Newark. Here, I might almost have skipped such a descriptor, because the young woman in question appeared to be a mix of black and white.)

These large drawings were outside the former Hahne's Department Store, on Broad Street.

There didn't seem to be a thin plastic storage box to hold the chip when it's not in the camera. Or did I just miss it when I saw the card pop out of its plastic jail? There certainly should be such a storage case. But I don't have one.

There used to be a railroad terminal entrance on Broad Street near the present Prudential Center. Neither the terminal nor the railroad exists anymore. Is the roofless canopy outside Aljira meant to echo this roofless canopy on the other side of Broad Street and down half a mile?

Not having such a case, I put the extra chip into a compartment of my wallet, next to my Medicare card. I didn't dare store it in the same pocket in my waistpouch as the camera, in that I have twice now lost things I accidentally pulled out with the camera.

From 744 Broad, I walked all the way down to Symphony Hall to see the art exhibition there, hoping to see the theater area as well. Alas, that part of the building was not open. While taking pix in other rooms on the ground floor of the Symphony Hall building, my battery ran out! I was thus confronted with two alternatives: (1) continue in my travels to other art venues without being able to take pictures or videos; or (2) take a bus all the way home to Vailsburg, some 4 miles, and recharge the battery at home, then return Downtown, by bus a second time in a single day, and only thru such a time-consuming process be able to take pix and vids to my heart's content. One of the artists at the Symphony Hall show, Ruth Bauer Neustadter, and I thought about it aloud, and agreed that I needed to go home to recharge the battery. It was then 1:20pm. What neither of us knew is whether I'd have the energy and force of will actually to make a second roundtrip Downtown.

Ornate roof on Broad Street. Street level of many old buildings may be marred by tacky business signs, but if you look above the first floor, you may spot some appealing architectural detail.

I did. I am a real trouper for Newark arts, I am.
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Once I got home, I climbed the 16½ stairs from the sidewalk to my front door, then the 26 stairs within the house to my home office on the third floor; put the camera battery on to charge; copied off to my computer and backed-up onto my external hard drive the fotos and videos I had made earlier in the day; checked email again; played the 13 short vids I had made; and looked at the 50 or so fotos I had taken theretofore. After an hour, the battery was fully charged. Then I put the battery back into my camera; walked down the 42½ steps to the sidewalk and two blocks to the bus stop; waited for and caut the #1 bus; and headed Downtown for the second time today. Happily, I get a half-price break on the fare because I'm old, $1.05 on NJT for two zones. So the imposition of that double roundtrip Downtown was mainly temporal, not monetary. I took the #31 bus home, both times, for 75¢ each time. I don't know why there's a difference.

Logo on façade of the Newark Boys Chorus School, which is near Symphony Hall. I hadn't noticed the one bowtie for three boys. Perhaps some future Open Doors weekend, the Boys will sing at the opening or closing reception for the group show.

I got off the bus at Washington Street and crossed Market Street, first to check out Rupert Ravens Contemporary, which showed the first signs of life in months, then to walk up to Washington Park to see the end of the outdoor arts festival, and then to attend the closing party of Open Doors 2011 at 570 Broad Street. I took fotos along the way and at 570, and will show many of them over the next few days.

Banner by Trinity & St. Philip's Episcopal Cathedral. Is that to be an outdoor event? In November?

I have not gone to Newgin to figure out how much I walked today, but it was a lot, and I encountered some resistance from my (fortunately) aging body. I hope my arduous day of busing, walking, climbing, descending, walking, busing, and more walking and busing and walking and climbing will prove good for me. Friedrich Nietsche observed that "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". I hope!

As I was chatting with someone who was waiting for the same bus as I (on the final leg of my wanderings today), he spotted this super-streamlined sports car behind me on Market Street. He thought it might be a Maserati, but I don't know that to be a fact. I tried to get a picture, but the camera was set to no-flash, and ambient lite wasn't brite enuf. The traffic lite changed before I could set my camera to flash, so this is the only foto I got of it. It's nice to see expensive cars and stretch limos in Newark from time to time.

None of the four friends and couple of relatives I suggested join me did in fact join me for any of today's events. It's always good to go to art shows with someone, since s/he is likely to notice things you don't. But I had so many places to go today that it would have been very hard on anyone else to accompany me. In the alternative, I would have missed a lot had I had to stay with a friend. BUT, Ingá has a car, so getting around would have been a lot easier, and maybe I could have charged my camera battery without having to go all the way back to Vailsburg. Ah, well. I managed.

View from Military Park.

Now, I have only to run all 188 fotos — or at least all those that are not too fuzzy to be usable — thru my graffics program (at about 3 minutes each), decide what to say about each venue, select and resize appropriate pictures, upload them to Picasa, caption them in Picasa, lift the code to display the fotos in this blog, place that code in an appropriate spot, put in formatting codes, upload the compiled blog text and illustrations, proofread it, and make the corrections. I think I will do more than one post, by venue, to simplify my task.

Saturday at Home

I couldn't get my car fixed today, and wasn't up to trying to get to several art events in this "Open Doors" weekend by NJTransit bus, then Newark Arts Council shuttle-bus, then home by NJT bus again, accomplishing nothing on the way home for want of the flexibility and lugging capacity of a car. So I decided to sit out Saturday at home, and save my energy for the reduced number of art events on Sunday. And why is that, anyway? Why isn't the Sunday of the Open Doors weekend filled with as many events as Friday and Saturday? Sunday is the best day for suburbanites to visit Newark. There's lots of free parking on the street, and nothing to do in the 'burbs but watch television. Saturday gives suburbanites a chance to recover from the workweek. Sunday should be not only a full member of the Open Doors weekend but perhaps even its biggest day!

A yellow tree in front of the house nextdoor contrasts with a different kind of deciduous tree to the left (an oak), whose leaves have not yet started to change, and an evergreen in front of my house, in the color medley that permits a hundred million people in this country to consign themselves to summer's end in the splendiferous colors of fall. I have many evergreens on my property to see me thru to spring.

The leaves have started to change, and to 'fall' — the preferred American term for what in Britain is preferentially termed "autumn". The soonest I can get my car fixed is Monday, if then, but before long I'd like to take a drive thru Somerset County or maybe other semi-rural areas to take in the fall colors. Are the leaves already gone in Sussex County? I thought maybe I'd like to check out High Point. I was there as a child (my parents took us; I did not go on my own). How about Warren County? I might check out the Delaware Water Gap (been there, same way). I'm not driving to Vermont. Been there too, tho, on my own.
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I don't know what kind of tree the foto above captures. My entire block is lined with them at curbside. They produce yellow flowers in clusters, in June, mostly on the crown. Those flowers then turn to papery green, then brown seed pods. And the leaves turn, to a cheerful yellow, sooner than other trees' leaves change to whatever color, like oaks' dull brown. Oddly, my 70-foot oak trees seem not to have produced acorns again this year, as tho they have been permanently damaged by whatever phenomenon it was 3 or so years ago that produced the first season without acorns, across much of the Eastern United States, that anyone could recall. Since then, oaks in my neighborhood have dropped acorns only once. My cousin Faith's oaks, in Bergen County, produced massive amounts of acorns last year, however. What is going on?
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Note: I did not see until I went to upload today's post that yesterday's was the 1,600th of this blog, even.

'Open Doors' Decisions

The Newark Arts Council's tenth annual "Open Doors" extravaganza is upon us, today thru Sunday. There are so many things on offer at so many venues in various parts of Downtown and just outside Downtown that no one person is likely to be able to see everything. So decisions must be made.

Today's fotos are from the launch party in June for Akintola Hanif's Hycide magazine at Aljira. There is a party for the second edition of that magazine, also at Aljira, this evening that I plan to attend, esp. as there is also a reception at Index and Kedar right nearby.

As I note in the foto-caption above, there are some venues that are close together, as simplifies seeing more than one show. There are others within walking distance of each other. And there is a shuttle bus that stops near most, but not all of the venues.

The NAC (said as letters, not "knack") has materials, including printable .PDF files, available at its website describing the Open Doors events. A .PDF file with short descriptions of each show runs 14 pages! A shorter .PDF of a few other parties runs 3 pages. A map with the shuttle routes shown is available in two versions, Purple Route and Pink Route. There are actually two Purple maps, one for tonite (the 21st, tho the intro page says 22nd) and one for Saturday the 22nd. All 3 maps are printable, but be sure to select LANDSCAPE for the paper type.

In addition to Aljira, Index, and Kedar, my own indoor must-sees include Robeson, NJIT, Symphony Hall, and Solo(s), all opening with receptions tonite, plus, of course, the closing of the NAC group show at 570 Broad Street on Sunday. Outdoor events include the Barat Foundation's "Creation Nation" Newark Arts Parade on Sunday from 765 Broad Street (at Bank) to Washington Park, where there is to be an outdoor arts fair.

Parade Staging: 10:00 AM:
Bank Street between Washington Street and Broad Street

Parade Take Off:
11:00 - 1:00 pm March down Broad Street to Washington Park

12:00 - 5:00 - Open Air Arts Festival Washington Park.

There will be two floats in the parade; three marching bands; dozens of schools; a fleet of peace boats; artists; the World Champion Double Dutch Team, the Dominican Dance Group, the Organizacion Carnavalesca de Santiago en New Jersey; the Aztec Dance trope, Kalpulli Huehuetlahtolli Danzantes, and numerous community organizations.

I'd also like to get to Arts High School and perhaps do the Mural Bus Tour. If I get to all or even most of these venues, I shall have to be very sparing in my fotos of each, or I'll be overwhelmed and not be able to get good coverage of them into this blog. My coverage will, in any event, be retrospective, since I won't be able to get much online until after the Open Doors weekend closes. I also plan to make videos of portions of the Arts Parade and edit them together into an overview of that event.

I asked my friends Ingá, Lisa, Gaetano, and Joe from Belleville if they'd like to attend anything with me. Ingá and I attended part of last year's (the year before's?) Open Doors, and Lisa has attended other art events with me, but Joe's sister from the Atlantic City area is coming in this weekend, and Gaetano has a convention all weekend long. I gave Joe the URL to the NAC website's descriptive materials and urged him to tell his sister about the weekend of events, then let her decide if she'd like to see any of them. I also emailed my cousin Faith and her husband in Bergen County about it, but her mother, my Aunt Mae, broke her hip a couple of months ago and is still recuperating. If they have a wheelchair for her, she might ride thru Open Doors events in style. We'll see.

P.S. Cartastrophe. I headed out for my pre-selected Open Doors events around 6:45pm, made a stop to buy 3 lottery tickets (one for each of the big draws (Powerball, MegaMillions, and Pick 6, including a $140M jackpot for Powerball) from Sanford [sic] Supermarket, my local convenience store, and engaged the car's parking brake on the hill just down Silver Street from Sandford Avenue. When I returned to the car, I disengaged the parking brake, the "BRAKE" lite went off, as it should have, and I went on my way, stopping on level ground (so did not engage the parking brake again) to mail a check for my Newark City water bill at the mailbox outside the Vailsburg Post Office (the City was threatening to shut off my water, for $194.99 due for several months; but they won't take either online or telefoned water-bill payments, the dopy SOB's, as would simplify my task in paying the bill or speeding payments to the City). Then I headed off Downtown.

The remaining fotos today are from the Hycide opening party, as are the earlier fotos, except that these show that that event was held within the context of a pre-existing Aljira art show ("Aljira" being pronounced aal.jíe.ra, not like Al-Jazeera, àal.ja.zéer.a).

A mile and a half on, I heard a noise from under the hood like something breaking. (I'm thinking now of the grating commercials for Aamco in which people try to replicate for a mechanic the noises they hear that might narrow down their car's problem. There's no way I could imitate the short, 2-second sequence of sounds I heard.) The "BRAKE" lite and battery-icon lite came on, and my power steering stopped working. I pulled over right outside a gas station at Grove Street and 16th Avenue in Irvington, and asked if there was a mechanic on duty. No. Few service stations in this peculiar age have mechanics on duty, something a very large proportion of service stations used to have, whenever they were open. I suppose this change is due in large part to the electronics in modern cars, which renders them into much more complicated devices than cars used to be, almost as much electronic as simply mechanical or electrical. Is there an automobile equivalent of "avionics" to describe the electronic control systems that make evaluating and fixing car problems much more difficult and expensive than they used to be? And is this 'improvement' in cars really progress, if we can't get repairs wherever we happen to be when a problem develops?

I loved this painting of nitetime traffic on a superhighway (4 lanes in each direction). It is, I concede, an unusual artistic topic, but one that captures something of the striking views and fanciful feelings we have while driving. I sometimes think of the highway as a snake, or a pathway along which snakes travel.

I pulled out onto Grove Street again, with muscular challenge in steering (actually sort of welcome to me), and decided it would be foolish to try to drive to Open Doors venues, esp. since it was after dark and my headlites were steadily draining the battery, which suggested that what had happened (at the least) is that the fanbelt to the alternator had snapped. I don't know why that would have caused the hand-brake lite to go on, or have cut off the power steering, but perhaps the snapped belt flew into something and jammed it, or the "power" in "power steering" is electrical power. Maybe those systems and trouble indicators were all affected simply by the alternator's being knocked out. I see from Wikipedia that some "power steering" systems do indeed employ electrical power. That's comforting.

I don't know where NJ fotografer John Masi found this wall and the child walking in front of it, but the effect is brilliant, and I congratulate him on finding brilliance in a blue-brick wall — in Brick City? (He pronounces his last name like "Massey", rather than (what I assume to be) the actual Italian móz.ee.)

I can tell you from my 20 minutes or so without power steering, that driving would be a much better physical exercise than it now is if we did NOT have power steering. But it would also be much more dangerous, because many of us, and esp. weak people, of whatever gender or age — if not all drivers — could not, without power assist, readily make the quick turns out of danger that we are accustomed to. In any case, I made the left from Grove Street onto Central Avenue and headed home.

Astonishingly heavy traffic, moving very slowly, had me worrying I wouldn't get home before the battery conked out. But I did manage, if just barely, to get home, and parked on the street rather than up my driveway, so I might drive 3/4 of a mile to General Tech (South Orange Avenue and Monticello Avenue) tomorrow morning — if I can start the car. If I can't, I can get Triple-A to tow me, once I clear with General Tech that they can tend to my car during the half day they are open Saturdays. A tow truck would probably not be able to get up my narrow driveway, given that my property is on a slope up from the street, hemmed in by concrete retaining walls on both sides. If General Tech canNOT fix my car Saturday, I can probably move the car to the other side of the street so that Monday streetsweeping won't give me a parking ticket. I've had two of those ($35 apiece, as I recall), and don't care to have another.

General Tech is a great repair shop close to me that does not seem to have its own website. Perhaps its owner/s feel/s it doesn't need one, in that it has as much business as it can handle, or even more. But I feel I should offer to make an uncomplicated, free website for them on, for instance, Tripod, so they'd have the higher profile and perceived legitimacy they deserve. They are very good at what they do, and very nice people into the bargain.

After I had turned the engine off, I wanted to move the car closer to the curb when I saw that the rear was out a bit far (maybe 15"), but the car would not start. I checked the booster pack in the trunk and saw that it was starting to get low, as showed both the green lite that indicated good to go and the amber that showed that the booster unit should be recharged. So I took the booster pack into the house and put it on to charge overnite.

If I'm right about a fanbelt and alternator, once I connect the booster pack to the car's battery tomorrow morning, I should be able to start the car, then drive it less than a mile to get another fanbelt installed, since the headlites won't be on to drain the battery (and I guess, from my rudimentary knowledge of cars powered by internal combustion, that the battery isn't really necessary to the car's continuing in operation once it's underway). If a new fanbelt fixes the problem — that even affected the horn, which sounded in a substantially lower register as well as more softly — I should be good to go to Saturday's and Sunday's Open Doors events by car. I actually like the lower horn sound. It's more like the horns of the big American cars I grew up with. We used to make fun of the high-pitched beepy-beeps of foreign-car horns.

Slitely fuzzy picture taken with ambient lite. I don't have a better picture (taken with flash), and liked the painting, so show this crappy picture anyway.

If, however, the flying remnants of the fanbelt hit and damaged other systems, I may have more serious problems to deal with. The car is 19 years old, a 1992 Geo Storm (called a Chevy by NJ Motor Vehicles but actually made by Isuzu in Japan and merely marketed by GM). It's a very good car, which I inherited from my late mother (who seems to me to have made a very wise purchase; my brother Alan also bought a Geo, tho the Prizm model), so I would much rather keep it than junk it. But nothing lasts forever. The transmission froze perhaps 7 years ago (I almost never know when things in the past happened, because I always "let it go"; I refuse to be burdened by the past) and cost me $1,900 to replace. Everything since then has been fine, or trivial to fix. But if I face a steady stream of repairs from now on, I might have to sell or junk the car and buy a two-zone bus pass (Vailsburg-Downtown) until or unless I can afford to get another car.

Public transportation is quite good in Newark, which is one very-major reason I moved here from Manhattan (c. 22-hour-a-day access to Manhattan). There used to be a Newark Transit Guide (a map with a legend of bus routes with their destinations) issued by NJTransit, that showed all the bus and train routes within Newark city limits. When I was thinking of moving here, someone in the Newark Public Library (was it Heidi, whom I have since met many times?) snailmailed me a copy (to West 46th Street in Manhattan, where I lived for 25 years before I moved here). It was extraordinarily helpful as I considered where within Newark to move.
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I have mentioned here that NJTransit refuses to keep that Newark map current, or reissue it. The City of Newark, Brick City Development Corporation, or somebody else should secure rights to publish a perpetually-current version (if updating should prove necessary; it might not be necessary, since most bus routes do not change over the course of decades) in many, many copies as part of a relocation package for individuals who are thinking of moving here, and/or as part of a Welcome Package for new arrivals (which package would as well include, for instance, a calendar of garbage/recycling/bulk pickups for their neighborhood, and a guide to City services of all kinds, with website URL's). I did not have a car when first I moved here, and lived happily in Vailsburg without a car for 3 years.

Description of the art show that served as backgrond for the Hycide party.

Public transit is much less expensive than a car, given the costs of gasoline and, esp., auto insurance(!). But waiting for public transportation can be very irritating and time-consuming in off-hours, given that buses often don't stick closely to schedule, even the 1 mile in from the start of the route that the #1 bus's stop closest to me is, and less than that from the Dover Street start of the #31, (both) going Downtown. In cold, rainy, and esp. snowy weather, and when the streets and sidewalks between the bus stop and my house are difficult to negotiate because of snow and, worse, ice); and when I'm dealing with heavy groceries by bus or my four-wheeled, uprite, wire shopping cart pulled behind me as I walk hither and yon (and dragging a shopping cart, even on wheels, can be very hard on snowy/icy sidewalks), having to use public transit or walk everywhere would surely cut into my productivity.
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It would also, however, increase my physical activity, which would be all to the good, esp. for someone who has an overwhelmingly sedentary lifestyle, and esp. someone elderly who needs things that force me to be more active. Currently, I sometimes make as many as 6 or 7 stops when I leave the house to do chores by car, and indeed had already done 2 when the car failed me tonite. By bus or walking, I might get only 2 or 3 things done in any given day. Were that the most I could get done in a day, it would force me to leave the house more often, which might be good for me.

Also, if I couldn't get to as many art and other events as I now do, I might eventually catch up on the events I've already attended but not yet found the time to discuss in this blog, plus non-event topics I have meant to discuss. I have dozens of topics I should have tended to but have not. Does it really matter if, in a blog whose posts remain online for years and years, whether I deal with a topic the day after it happens, or a year after it happened? Not to me. I am almost 67 years old, and know from experience that tho we might, in youth, feel we must know some things immediately, there really is almost nothing we actually need to know immediately. In terms of recent news stories, for instance, does it really matter whether we know that Muammar Qaddafi was killed earlier today? Or would it suffice to know that a murderous, evil dictator got his comeuppance from the indignant, infuriated people of Libya at some point? The lessons of history do not require immediacy. Quite the contrary, sometimes appreciating the historical significance of something requires (temporal) distance.
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I'm annoyed that I allowed my discussion to wander from Newark arts to international turmoil resulting in murder. I intended to talk only about good things that could result from my having my car break down beyond repair, but international affairs of gruesome type intruded upon the discussion in order that I might make a point about immediacy as against the long view.

Still, I hope my present problem is just a broken fanbelt. If it is, my father will have been vindicated in his attempts to teach me the basics of automobiles. He knew his stuff, and wanted me to know that stuff as well. I would look over his shoulder at an automobile engine, but not always see what he was talking about. Then he'd have to take a screwdriver and point more closely, so I could see what he was talking about. He'd show that to me under the hood of a Hudson or whatever other car we had that wasn't working right. I liked that, even when I didn't grasp everything he meant to instruct me in. When cars were just mechanical devices, it was possible for mere mortals to diagnose and fix problems. Once computer chips entered the equation, all mechanics-only bets went out the door. You couldn't just watch for a minute or two and literally see the problem. You would need to plug in an electronic panel to take measurements from many different chips. Thanks anyway, Dad. To the extent computer chips are NOT involved in a given problem, but it's just a mechanical issue, I and other people similarly schooled, can understand. But we really can't understand much of what goes on in the modern automobile, can we?

I asked Victor Davson, the founder of Aljira, to pose for a picture. He somehow knew who I was, and knew, therefore, that I am respectful of Newark's art figures. Someday I will interview him, probably in an extended video, about Aljira, the changes Newark has undergone, and Newark's future as he sees things.