Mini-Blackout

I was IM "chatting" with Joe from Belleville on February 22nd when all of a sudden, at 10pm, the electricity in my home office went off, cutting off the cable modem. The laptop computer itself remained on, drawing power from its internal battery. I thought at first that I had exceeded the wattage available on that circuit, so the circuit breaker had tripped. That had happened a week or so earlier. But I looked out the window and the street seemed dark too. I went to the window and saw that the streetlites and lites in the windows of neighboring houses were also out, so foned Joe to say that we had a blackout. He did not. I wondered how far this blackout extended, so decided to explore.

18th Avenue, looking east past two darkened blocks to the lites on Stuyvesant Avenue.

I heard some neighbors talking, and saw some of them outdoors with flashlites. I keep a wind-up flashlite in a drawer by my desk, so cranked it up to walk downstairs two flites indoors and one flite outdoors. I saw a couple of neighbors sitting on a stoop and said, "It appears that no one on this entire block paid their bill." They were cheerful, despite the inconvenience. I mentioned that this was my 3d blackout since moving to Newark (in June 2000). There was one fairly localized, in May 2004, and a region-wide blackout that affected NYC too (news coverage after the fact showed masses of pedestrians streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge). (I see now, from my post of May 11, 2004, that I forgot about two other short blackouts in one nite in early 2004. I also found a post of June 10, 2008 that referred to another localized outage here. Funny what you forget.) And now this one. My neighbors and I could see that lites were on, one block west of us, on Sandford Avenue (the main north-south drag of Vailsburg), but off, on Mead Street, one block east.

The only lites on Mead Street were these three little solar-powered lites in a front yard. They didn't throw enuf lite for my camera to focus.

I bid those neighbors good nite, and headed down Smith Street to 18th Avenue, then down 18th Avenue to Stuyvesant Avenue, another major north-south road, two blocks east of my street. Stuyvesant had lites on its eastern side but not most of its western side. The traffic lites at 18th Avenue and Stuyvesant were off, even tho the streetlites on both sides of the traffic lites were on.

It's a bit hard to see, but there are darkened traffic lites in the middle of this intersection, Stuyvesant and 18th Avenues.

I then walked back up 18th and across Mead Street south to the next street. So rarely do I travel that road, since it is one-way the wrong way from the post office — which p.o. is slated for closure when USPS cuts services; we've got to fite that! — that I couldn't even remember its name, Commonwealth Avenue. Commonwealth was dark, too, but the lites were on halfway down the block south to Lenox Street, which I was familiar with, because it goes the right way from the post office, and there's a convenience store there where I have bought lottery tickets and other things after the one nearer me closes for the nite (about an hour earlier, I think).

This is one of two evergreens on Mead Street, all lower limbs of which had been chopped off, perhaps due to the damage from October's freak snowstorm. Perhaps not.

I turned around and walked back north on darkened Mead Street to Abinger Place. Along the way, I saw one cat and a little dog of what seemed an expensive breed to be out alone at nite, a Pekingese or Shih Tzu. ("Shih Tzu" is properly pronounced shéed.zue but is actually pronounced by most people as shít.sue. Here again you can see why I'm a spelling reformer. If the dog's name were spelled "Sheedzu", nobody would use the jarring mispronunciation shít.sue.)
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Parts of Abinger down toward Stuyvesant had lites. I then walked west along Abinger one block to Smith Street again. At that point, a neighbor from the vicinity of Smith Street and South Orange Avenue, who was walking south on Smith, asked if Smith was dark all the way to 18th Avenue, which I confirmed. He was doing the same thing as I, walking to find the extent of the blackout. He said he lives near SOA, and the entire distance north two blocks from where we stood, was also dark, saving me that walk.

In this map of the entire blacked-out area, SOA is the maroon road south of the "56" (which represents the site of the former Stanley Theater, now the Newark Tabernacle, a church).

He also reported that there were two big PSE&G trucks at SOA just west of Smith, working at an overburdened, tilted pole, which he assumed is where the problem arose. As we were talking, the lites came back on, around 45 minutes after the problem started. Good work, Public Service. Before my neighbor headed home, I introduced myself, gave him my card, and urged him to check out this fotoblog. I don't know how soon I will again encounter Tommy Matthews, but it was nice to meet somebody outside of an art-event setting.
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As I walked this route, the only people I saw socializing were on my block, plus three teenage boys on the corner of 18th Avenue and Smith Street. I didn't even see the flicker of candles in any window along the way. Maybe working people just went to bed early. I hope they weren't relying on a clock radio to wake up the next day, because if theirs is anything like mine, its set alarm/s (mine originally had two, tho one has stopped working) would have been cleared, and they'd wake to a flashing time that is wildly off, showing the time that has passed since the midnite default time. Windup or battery-driven clocks have their uses.

Channel 2-2 Is Up and Running

Note: I may not be able to update this blog for several days due to an unexpected financial drain in having to ransom my car from an impound lot, at a time when my cable-modem bill is due.

I have mentioned that things have been happening on channel 2-2, which did not even appear on my digibox list until recent weeks, and then as a bouncing rectangle, first against a black background, then against bars of color. Well, we now have a new over-air channel on 2-2, called "CBSNY+", said as "C-B-S New York Plus". The CBS television network's flagship station has never before Tuesday had more than one over-air channel. Now it does, but it is not yet indexed at TVGuide.com. I suspect it will be a local all-news station, including frequent weather reports. I am really pleased about this, because over a year ago, WABC dropped its 24-hour weather channel, which was great, in cycling thru details about major sections of the Tristate Area, including Newark.

In that I don't have any fotos specific to today's topics, I present some fotos of things I saw in walking home from the bus today. I went one stop beyond my street because I wanted to get 3 lottery tickets (one for each of the big games) at a store one block up a steep hill, but the bus stopped farther along the level road than I expected. This first foto shows a host of berries on a holly bush this late in the season. I thought birds would have denuded the bush by now, but Wikipedia says the berries are slitely toxic and hard until after frozen and unfrozen several times, so maybe they'll be eaten before spring arrives.

I now see that CBSNY+ is to have special segments, such as a C/NET report on nifty things about computers and the Internet; a 1010 WINS report on world news more than just local; and cooking/restaurant closeups. I'll have to monitor this and see if this is as good a thing as it initially seems. It comes in clear as a bell on my third floor. I may have to rescan my digiboxes on the lower floors to see if I can get 2-2 well there too. I wrote to TVGuide.com to ask them to show 2-2 programming in its listings grid.

I don't know what this shrub is, but it is different colors in different parts — evergreen, reddish-purple, and yellow.

In looking for more information about this new channel, I did a Google Search for "CBSNY+" but found nothing. I then went to the WCBS website and still didn't find it. Alas, I did find a story, "Poll: Nearly 1 In 3 Americans Hold ‘Unfavorable’ View Of New Jersey". Here's the lead (or "lede", an actual alternative spelling, since 1965, for the sense "alternative spelling of lead in the newspaper journalism sense ... used to distinguish this sense from other possible meanings of the word, perhaps especially the molten lead used in typesetting machines" — here too you can see why I'm a spelling reformer) to the "full poll results" story:

Over the course of four months starting last October, PPP asked American voters nationally what their impressions of each state are. Hawaii came out on top, by far, with California bringing up the rear.

Americans generally have a favorable view of most states. Only five are in negative territory, led by California (27% favorable and 44% unfavorable), Illinois (19-29), New Jersey (25-32), Mississippi (22-28), and Utah (24-27). Only seven other states have net positive ratings in the single digits, and another breaks even (Louisiana).

If the Golden State and Land of Lincoln are viewed even more unfavorably, I guess we're in good company.

I had never seen this sculptural niche on Sandford Avenue. It's not the kind of thing I'd expect in this neighborhood, which I think is mostly Baptist or Pentecostal, whereas this niche seems Catholic.

Much of NJ's bad rep is undeserved, arising not from anything we have or have not done, or are, but from constant sniping by "comedians" such as Jay Leno. For instance, on February 14th, Leno's monolog mentioned passage by the NJ State Senate of a gay-marriage bill that day, then added: "Now comes the hard part, finding gay couples who actually want to live in New Jersey." Tain't funny, McGee." The WCBS website story has a poll that mentions the possible impact of MTV's Jersey Shore — which blames NJ for the behavior of a cast that is almost all New Yorkers. Oh, that's fair.

I noticed green shoots coming up in various yards along the way, so looked in my own front yard. Sure enuf, the daffodils (mostly jonquils or narcissuses, actually) in my front yard have popped up but not yet bloomed. I looked for the crocuses in my back yard, but they are not up yet, even tho I think crocuses usually precede daffodils.

The ugliness of the view along much of the New Jersey Turnpike hurts our rep, of course. Why doesn't the State plant some attractive trees and shrubs — evergreen and flowering — and perennial (wild)flowers along much of the Turnpike to fite the "moonscape" perception that the Turnpike gives tens of millions of people who traverse it? I imagine there are some NJ boosters who would willingly help with such plantings to help alter perceptions of this seriously underappreciated state.

Transit City

One of the reasons I moved to Newark (in June 2000) from Hell's Kitchen was the extensive network of public transportation, both between Manhattan and Newark, and within Newark and adjoining areas. The Newark Public Library had sent me, when I contacted them by email about moving to Newark, the "Newark Transit Guide" that NJTransit had offered in earlier years but discontinued. The Library still had some left. It was double-sided, one being a map with the routes and numbers of buses marked, and the other side being a directory of information about using the buses and trains. An inset map of the Central Business District also appears on the second side. Two buses run near me, the #1 (yup, #1 in the entire State of New Jersey), an NJT line, and the #31, a route of Coach USA, an independent bus company.

My grungy copy of the Newark Transit Guide, from before the year 2000. My cats made a wreck of it. The ballpoint pen is to show the size of the Guide, as folded.

Nowadays, some of the information that was on the Transit Guide is available from the NJTransit website, but that site does not include a comprehensive bus map showing the network of routes. The NJT website has a Trip Planner at the upper left of its home page. I thought it might be extremely difficult to get from my house to Motor Vehicles (which is situated for the convenience of drivers, not pedestrians or passengers of public transit), but it was surprisingly easy.

Map side of unfolded Guide.

My car was impounded when I was stopped by an NJIT cop over a week ago, and he discovered that my registration was out of date, apparently because my renewal form was lost in the mail. In the more than three months since my registration expired, I received no reminder, not by postal mail, not by email, not by robocall. So if, as happened to me, the renewal form is simply not delivered, you don't know that your registration has expired. That is inexcusably absurd — indeed, abusive. In any case, until I can get my car back — at a cost of HUNDREDS of dollars I can ill afford, all because the State of NJ refuses to send more than one notice of a registration's needing to be renewed; every business in the Nation can send reminders, but not our supposedly businesslike Republican State Administration — I am forced to use public transportation again, so am again glad I chose Newark, because I can get to the DMV ("MVC", technically), Police HQ, and impound lot all by bus.

Information side.

The online NJT Trip Planner generally does a great job, but I'd like to have a transit map to consult on my own. So I sent this message to NJT by feedback form.

NJT used to offer a hardcopy Newark Transit Guide, which was a map marked with the routes and numbers of the various buses and trains that served Newark, but that was discontinued more than a decade ago. I realize that hardcopy maps are expensive, but surely you could produce an online version, as in .PDF format, so people could just take a quick look at what runs near where they want to go, without having to use the Trip Planner each time, for each leg of a journey. Besides, the Trip Planner gives contradictory information. When I plugged in my home address and then just "Frelinghuysen Avenue" as the destination, I was shown a route involving 2 buses, the #1 and #107, which would take me close to where I wanted to go. But when I plugged in 288 Frelinghuysen, the DMV, I was shown an entirely different route, involving THREE buses. Please generate an updated, online,( .PDF,) version of the wonderful Newark Transit Guide. I suppose other major cities would like a comparable online map, but I am mostly concerned about the State's largest city, Newark, and maybe Jersey City, the State's second-largest municipality.

After a couple of days I got this reply:

Thank you for contacting NJ TRANSIT with your comments about the website and the difficulty you are having navigating the site for schedule information. I'm taking this opportunity to explain how to access some of the trip planner features that are featured on the website, below.

As you didn't provide your travel date or the time of day you plan to travel, it is very difficult to provide you with a detailed itinerary because service options change depending on that criteria, as well as your origin and destination locations. That is most likely the reason for the different directions you received, as there may be more than one bus route that you can use to complete some trips.

Our home page trip planner feature was added to the site to allow customers to quickly access an itinerary for the best (fastest) trip options between their Origin and Destination points for the date and time they wish to travel. You'll receive three (3) itinerary options based on the time and date you plan to travel. When entering your Origin and Destination, please be sure to include the city and state when entering an address or intersection. Our system will convert your address into its geocode address that is recognized by all other direction systems (e.g. Google maps, MapQuest, etc).

Similarly, be sure to enter your actual trip date and time, in addition to your specific Origin and Destination. You can choose between your departure time from your Origin and the time you want to Arrive at your destination. For return trip information, simply repeat the query reversing your Origin and Destination Points and enter the time you wish to return (be sure to select Departure time or Arrival time, whichever is more applicable).

Trip Planner route, two buses, from my area to within walking distance of Motor Vehicles.

You can also use the "Modify Trip" box located above the map on the results page to change your travel date and time, get return trip information, or plan a new trip. If you wish to streamline (customize) your search further, you can also minimize or maximize your travel time, transfers and walking distance using this feature.

With regard to the Bus Map request, please note that unlike our rail and light rail systems that have fixed routes, NJ TRANSIT operates 240 bus routes, with more than 18,000 bus stops linking major points in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia, As such a system bus map would need to encompass the entire state of New Jersey, which consists of 21 counties. Likewise, services available in the Newark area have grown and changed on a very fast past, with the implementation of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Service, extension of the Newark Light Rail system (formerly the Newark City Subway), and Go Bus lines. Keeping printed maps updated has proven to be too work intensive and costly.

To further assist our customers with planning and visualizing their trips, we've integrated our trip planner feature with Google Transit, so that you can get customized trip planner results for your intended use.

Sincerely, * * *
NJ TRANSIT Customer Service Team

Trip Planner route for second leg of my intended trip, from Motor Vehicles to Police HQ. I wasn't able to do this all in one day, but I did have to get up to Market Street to take the (#31) bus home.

As you can see, the "reply" does not in fact address the issues I raised. I spoke of a .PDF map of Newark, not the entire state, to be shown on the website. The reply speaks only of hardcopy maps. I mentioned that I plugged in just "Frelinghuysen Avenue" in one case and "288 Frelinghuysen" in the other. Everything else (e.g., starting location and time of day) was the same, including a maximum walking distance of 1 mile.

It turns out that I should have called up the schedule for the 107, and checked the route map at the bottom of the online timetable (above), which shows that the bus turns onto Route 22 shortly after it starts up Frelinghuysen. Then I would have been on notice to ask the driver how far up it goes on Frelinghuysen, and discovered that there's only one stop before the turn onto the highway. As it happens, the bus did make the turn, the bus driver (who had a very thick Indian(?) accent) did not seem to understand that I needed to get off immediately, and I had to get off on the highway and walk back perhaps three quarters of a mile, before I could walk up a half mile or so to Motor Vehicles. I just missed the cutoff for the day, and had to appeal to a manager to get permission to tend to my registration that day.

Four Corners to the area of the Dente Bros. impound lot. I intend to take pix of the soaring Pulaski Skyway span over the Passaic while I'm there.

Now I have to go to the Newark Police Auto Squad at 22 Franklin Street to get a release, which I can do by the #1 bus, which picks up two blocks from my house and lets me off at the Four Corners, only a few blocks from Franklin Street. Once I get the release, I can then take the #1 again to get to Dente Bros.' impound lot at the northeast corner of Newark, alongside the Passaic River at the Pulaski Skyway.

NJT homepage, showing the Trip Planner at top left.

I am very angry that there is the absurd extra step of showing my registration to the Auto Squad, because that department was not open Saturday, Sunday, or, this week, Monday! So unless there is a restriction on Dente's charging $10.70 a day for days on which an owner cannot possibly get a release to present to them, I will be charged $32.10 because of an arbitrary procedure that any police officer should be able to do, at any time of day or nite — if indeed there is any reason for it to be done at all. What are the police going to do that Dente couldn't? Look at the registration? Dente can do that. Log onto the Motor Vehicles database to confirm a valid registration? Why can't Dente, as the official repository of impounded vehicles, be authorized to do that too?

New buses offer both written and auditory announcements of the next stop, so you always know where you are. This was news to me. (The electronic lite sign does not turn out well in fotografy. This stop is "LYONS AVE & COIT ST", on the 107.)

In any case, I have to take the #1 bus that says "Via River Terminal" to the Passaic, and walk just under half a mile north to Dente. Assuming nothing goes wrong, I won't have to take a bus back, but can drive again, along any road I want, at any time I want. But it's very good to know how well I (and other people) can get around Newark by bus.

Airplane-style overhead panel on new bus. The orange button replaces the push-tape to request a stop. The other two buttons, on either side, control the two individual reading lites and individual airjets. Too bad the buses, at least as seen from the front, are so ugly!

I think NJT should create an updated version of a Newark Transit Guide and put it on the NJT website. It should also give the City of Newark permission to print hardcopy versions for distribution with a relocation package for use by businesses and individuals that are thinking of moving to Newark. The City of Newark should add museums, art galleries, historical sites, etc., on at least a version of the Guide, for distribution as a tourist map. The Guide should of course also contain printed URL's to the NJT website and a tourism website to be created by the City. We need to bring more businesses, residents, and tourists into this fine city. Showing everyone how good the network of public transportation in Newark is would help do that. Manhattanites would be especially impressed that they would not have to buy a car immediately upon moving to Newark, but could use public transportation until they are ready to buy a car. Or they might live without a car in general, and rent one for vacation travel only.

'New Jersey' Rather Than 'Newark' in Whitney Houston Coverage

Today's fotos are of Newark's park-like Fairmount Cemetery, opened in 1855 and still accepting permanent residents.

Did you notice the clear preference of major media to speak of "New Jersey" rather than "Newark" in connection with events surrounding funeral services for Whitney Houston? On AOL, it was several paragraphs extending well below the first screen before "Newark" first appeared. Electronic media seem to have an aversion to print-journalism's "dateline" feature, "a line giving the place of origin and usually the date of a news dispatch or the like". Oh, they did have to refer to "Newark" from time to time, but they did so as little as possible, and I for one was offended.

I'm also saddened that the family chose to bury Whitney in Westfield, a rich suburb not even in Essex County, but 20 miles from Newark in Union County. Why not in Newark's historic, beautiful Fairmount Cemetery, much easier for fans of modest means to get to?

The reason I heard given is that her father is buried there. Same question: why was he buried outside Newark? And couldn't he have been MOVED to Newark, earlier this past week, to be alongside his dauter? It's not as tho a backhoe disinterring him from Westfield and a hearse moving his remains to Fairmount would have disturbed his sleep.

I suppose when her time comes, Cissy Houston will also be buried 20 miles from Newark. Why? Newark is the great city of "New Jersey", and Whitney's birthplace. Fairmount Cemetery is an 11-minute ride on the #34M bus from Newark Penn Station to the Central Avenue entrance, and even closer to East Orange, where Whitney grew up. Poor fans could easily visit Whitney's grave there, but not nearly so easily in Westfield.

The family had to have thought of where Whitney and Cissy would as well be buried when they chose the cemetery for Whitney's father. Why didn't they choose Newark for his burial? Then the choice of a final resting place for Whitney would be simple even for an unexpectedly early death. But how unexpected was Whitney's early death, really? Didn't we all see it coming — albeit with dread?

It really is not too late to put Whitney and her father into a fine tomb in Fairmount Cemetery, Newark. Surely fans could raise the money to create a magnificent structure to welcome and comfort visitors, such as this tomb for Newark's Feigenspan brewing family.

Is it really out of line to suggest that one of the things that contributed to Whitney's loss of bearings was her cutting herself off from her roots? Her mother didn't, and she's still alive (thank goodness). First California, now Westfield. Would Whitney have lost her mind in Newark? We'll never know, but I have my suspicions that a great many people with ties to Newark who leave do themselves no favor.

For myself, I'll be cremated, so that most of me rises into and merges with the sky, and either have my ashes preserved somewhere in Newark (Fairmount has a mausoleum) or scattered somewhere else in Newark, as local ordinance may permit. That is, if I ever decide to die. To quote comic Steven Wright, "I intend to live forever. So far, so good." Actually, of course, no one in his right mind would really want eternal life — quadrillions of billions of years, and more, of the same crap every day. Even Buddhism, from which we derive the term "nirvana", sees the eventual end of life as a blessed occurrence. Buddhism just puts death off for some indeterminate number of incarnations, then embraces death because a truly endless cycle of reincarnations would be unbearable. Could there be anything crueler than consigning Whitney Houston to dozens of lives of the kind of misery she suffered? She didn't seem to learn her lesson in this life. What reason have we to believe that she — or other drug addicts — would learn their lesson over multiple lives?

Burial site of Henry M. Doremus, of Doremus Avenue fame for having been Mayor of Newark from 1903 to 1907.

Gaetano and Joe from Belleville both hope that the cause of Whitney's death will prove not to be drugs. My hope is the opposite, that it will prove to have been drugs, so that kids will have yet another example of the madness of starting to use drugs. I'd like to think Whitney would be glad if her death saved others the kind of pain that drugs caused her and her family.

Aljira Opening Art Reception Thursday Evening

Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, opens its new art show this evening. Here's the text of the emailed announcement.

MLYLT*
(Me Love You Long Time)

February 16, 2012–April 14, 2012
Opening Reception: February 16, 2012, 5:30–8:30pm

Me Love You Long Time is a group exhibition of contemporary art and video since the 1990s by artists from North America and particularly those working in and descendent from Southeast Asia who use various media and complicated visual strategies to upend or explore gender expression, sexuality, sex work, and new subjectivities.

Artists include: Diyan Achjadi, Reza Afisina, Tai Chi Alfonso, Nicole Awai, Hima B., Yason Banal, Anjali Bhargava, Isauro Cairo, Lynne Chan, PierSath Chath, Vanna Chin, Susan Choi, Cecile Chong, Young Chung, Jon Cuyson, Cirilo Domine, Oasa DuVerney, Richard Fung, Permi Gill, Vicente Golveo, Akintola Hanif, Skowmon Hastanan, Swati Khurana, Andrew H. Kim, Naruki Kukita, Viet Le, Sokchanlina Lim, Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., Yeni Mao, Zavé G. Martohardjono, Tala Mateo, Gabby Quynh-Anh Miller, Ivan Monforte, Gloria Shuri Nava, Hoang Tan Nguyen, Phuong Linh Nguyen, Sokuntevy Oeur, Mariko Passion, Tomiko Pilson, Johanna Poethig, Pulang Alakdan, Clifford Landon Pun, Ling Quisumbing, Vanessa T. Ramalho, Rico J. Reyes, Larilyn Sanchez, Maitree Siriboon, SLAAAP! (Sexually Liberated Asian Artist Activist People!), Joel B. Tan, Teresa Nasty, The New Sound Karaoke with Black Waterfall & Bobby Service, Nodeth Vang, Nathan Lam Vuong, and Maria Yoon. * * *

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art
591 Broad Street, Newark, NJ 07102
p. 973 622-1600 f. 973 622-6526
info@aljira.org www.aljira.org

Gallery Hours
Wednesday–Friday, 12–6 pm
Saturday, 11 am–4 pm

As a spelling reformer, I would love to ask some of the smart-alec(k)s — yes, there are two accepted spellings for that word, as for hundreds of others — who oppose spelling reform, to read aloud all the names of the artists in this show. Would they get them all right, or assume that some are anglicized, when they're not, or that they have not been anglicized, when they have? Names are part of the problem with present-day English, since they are inserted in text that is equally unphonetic, often for the same reason: words are borrowed from other languages without change in spelling. In the case of some words and names, the spellings were invented, unsystematically, for foreign languages not written in the roman alphabet, like Chinese and Japanese.
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How are some of the vowels pronounced? Is the A in "Tan" like the A in the ordinary English word "tan"? Or is it like the short-O in "spontaneous"? How about the U in Chung and Fung? Is it as in English "hung" or like the OO in "good"? That may depend on whether the pronunciation has been anglicized. How about the LH in "Ramalho"? Is it pronounced in the Portuguese fashion, like LI in English "million"? Or has it been anglicized to an ordinary L? And who would know how to pronounce "Nguyen" if they had never seen that name before?

Artist Talk at Robeson, Annual Meeting at NuMu, Both Tuesday

I didn't make it to the opening reception for the present art shows at the Robeson Galleries at Rutgers-Newark. I had too much to do on other fronts. There is a talk by James Horner, one of the artists participating in the show at the Main Gallery, "The Wicked Twins: Fame & Notoriety", scheduled for tomorrow, Valentine's Day, from 1:00-2:00pm, in the Main Gallery. I doubt I'll get to that either, in that it's too early for me, and I have to try to get to the DMV (well, "MVC", technically) to fix a problem with my car's registration, then get all the way to the northeast corner of Newark to get my car out of the impound lot (and take some pix of the Skyway over the Passaic), and then back to the Newark Museum for the 102nd Annual Meeting and members preview of the next exhibit, "Poetic Pastimes: Japan and the Art of Leisure".

Fuzzy foto of invitation to NuMu Annual Meeting.

When it rains, it pours. Of course, if I cannot take care of business at the DMV and Dente's Tuesday, I'll just take the bus to Market Street and Washington, then walk to the Museum from there.

Fuzzy foto of invitation to preview of exhibit at the Newark Museum (outside).

I lost track of the Annual Meeting last year, and don't want to miss it this time. I don't know that I'll show up for the lecture at 6pm by Laura J. Mueller, guest curator for the Japan exhibition. But the galleries will be open from 5:30pm to 8pm, so if I'm not in the mood to listen to a lecture, I can wander the galleries to see what I haven't already seen. Altho, as a member, I can get into the Newark Museum free anytime I want, parking is a problem in that area (so a bus might be better), and the Museum closes too early for my schedule, given my 30 years of evening and graveyard shifts. So evening hours are ideal for people like me, and for working people who can't get to the Museum during its daytime hours during the workweek.
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I can recall being impressed that the main museum in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan (Canada), with only 2/3 the population of Newark, was open until 9pm. That's what Newark needs, late hours, for its museums and many businesses of many kinds. Maybe we don't need dance nites, like the Samba Party in 2010, nor overnite specials, like the 100th Anniversary marathon, tho both of those events were great. One nite a month when the Museum is open until 9pm, and maybe one Friday or Saturday every month or two when the Museum has a special overnite program would be terrific.
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Newark is not yet a 24-hour city (and our idiot Municipal Council is insisting that things close down earlier rather than later! — the fools!), but needs to be a 24-hour city. Every great American city has lots going 24 hours a day. If Newark aspires to be a great city in the estimation of Americans, it needs to have lots to do 24 hours a day, and a museum open 24 hours a day at least every 90 days would be of inestimable value in pumping up our rep in the art world.

Invitation to preview of exhibit at the Newark Museum (inside).

Gaetano may be a NuMu member too, but I've never seen him at any Museum reception or annual meeting. I'm sending him email to ask if he's attending. It would be nice to see him there, even tho I sometimes run across Rupert Ravens, Gae Savannah, Matt Gosser, or other Newark artists at Newark Museum events. Heck, I can take someone on my invite, so I'll ask Joe from Belleville if he wants to go. He went with me to the Museum once, and really liked the wonderful Joseph Stella five-panel piece, The Voice of the City of New York Interpreted. Someday, some great artist will create a great artwork about Newark. I hope I and everyone reading this will be around to view it.

Whitney's Church

The spot under the car is a helium-filled balloon that got away from the cluster on the fence (below).

I mentioned yesterday that I thought I should try to get to Whitney Houston's childhood church (and her mother, Cissy Houston's, present church), New Hope Baptist on Sussex Avenue at Dey Street. So today I traveled to take pix for a special "Church Sunday" feature.

I didn't try to get up early enuf to see congregants attending services (news reports afterward said the service that was devoted to celebrating Whitney's life started before 7am, and I am often not even asleep until after 7am, given 30 years of working evening and graveyard shifts).

Besides, I certainly would not have wanted to intrude upon any service, nor upon people emerging from services. And it was horribly cold. But I did want to see if anyone would be outside the church late in the day, and if balloons and things were left there.

This is the small group outside the church late in the day. In the distance, the white building at the visual end of the street is one of two large residential buildings under construction.

As I arrived, shortly before 5pm, I saw this satellite-uplink video truck from Fox News.

There were various tripods standing unattended, as indicated that media took some footage earlier in the day and were ready to cover anything else that might develop at the site. I don't think that anything did develop later, but I was there for less than 15 minutes. The weather was penetratingly cold, and my hands, which I had kept out of my gloves to take pix, got severely chilled. I might have been able to take pix with my knitted gloves on. They're quite flexible.

Think about that expensive equipment being left unguarded on the streets of Newark. That says good things about Newark's present condition, and reputation, doesn't it?

After I'd taken some fotos of nothing much happening, I headed to NJPAC to see if anyone left anything by Whitney's plaque on the Walk of Fame. Along the way there, I had a serious traffic problem that produced the towing of my car at Sussex Avenue and Summit Street, which I will discuss here another time.

In any case, I had to walk, in the cold, from that location, one block west of MLK and Central Avenue, to NJPAC, then on to Newark Penn Station, to take the bus home. When I got to the Walk of Fame, I discovered that no one had left anything at Whitney's plaque. Not one balloon or anything, so I thought at first that I had suffered an expensive traffic incident pretty much for nothing.

But I'll arrange to get to Dente Bros. to redeem my car during the day, so I can take pix of the soaring Pulaski Skyway bridge over the Passaic from Dente's impound lot. I was there once before, but at nite, so couldn't take fotos then.

The foto of Whitney's plaque in context, with the setting sun beyond, turned out well after all. It might not be worth what it will have cost me, but it strikes me as pretty good, considering the liting conditions. And the sun setting beyond her plaque seems calmly fitting for the occasion.

Upset about Whitney

Newarkers were among the people hardest hit by today's disturbing news, the sudden, unexpected death of Newark and East Orange's own Whitney Houston. As I write, the cause of death is not yet known. But that's not the point of this post. I was surprised by how disturbing I found the news. I guess I had felt, irrationally of course, that she was indestructible. She had had so many bad things happen, but survived. Most recently, news reports at the end of January said she had lost her entire fortune, over $100 million. A spokesperson for Ms. Houston — yes, I know we all tend to call her by her first name (like Cher; what other "Whitney" would we mean?), and I will again; but I didn't know her, so should show at least once the formal respect due someone you never met — denied that report, and I don't know what the truth is. I suppose that if it was true, this would have been as good a time as any for her to die, from her point of view.

Whitney Houston was born in Newark and raised in East Orange, just like Queen Latifah (tho there is some uncertainty as to whether QL was born in Newark or E.O.). My friend Joe from Belleville did a little online research tonite and found this Tweet:

I imagine Queen / Dana (Owens, her real name) knew Whitney at least in adulthood if not in E.O. Joe also found a YouTube video of Whitney as a child singing in New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. I guess I should venture to Sussex Avenue between Dey and Lock Streets to fotograf that church tomorrow, tho I don't know if the building in place today is the building Whitney sang in as a child. I imagine there will be a pretty fair turnout tomorrow to honor and remember their own, precious, little Whitney Houston.
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Newarkers and East Orangers who want to pay tribute to Whitney can, alternatively, visit her plaque in the New Jersey Walk of Fame that connects NJPAC with the NJPAC lite-rail station. I show that plaque today in overview and closeup so you can, I hope, read the information on various of the 'records' in the design. Whitney had many actual records.Wikipedia says she was:

the most-awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records. Her list of awards includes two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. Houston was also one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. Inspired by prominent soul singers in her family, including her mother Cissy Houston, cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and her godmother Aretha Franklin, Houston began singing with New Jersey church's junior gospel choir at age 11.

There is a curious elision in that description of her church. It should read "with her Newark, New Jersey church's junior gospel choir". Why was "Newark" dropped?

Whitney's mother, Cissy Houston, is still alive. It is so hard on parents to lose a child, no matter their age. My father's older brother, Maurice, died before their mother did, and I know it hurt Grandma Amy badly. Of course, Whitney's life was no walk in the park for her mother, either. It must have been awful for Cissy Houston to see her dauter's life careen out of control, and be unable to do a thing about it.
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I was surprised that the news reports featured bits of video of a couple of her pop songs but not my favorite of all her performances, the National Anthem at Super Bowl XXV, in 1991. (See video, here.)

Houston performed "The Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV on January 27, 1991. Due to overwhelming response to her rendition, it was released as a commercial single and video of her performance, and reached the Top 20 on the US Hot 100, making her the only act to turn the national anthem into a pop hit of that magnitude (Jose Feliciano's version reached No. 50 in November 1968).

(I do not refer you to the YouTube video of that performance that has had the greatest number of visits, because it is preceded by militarist propaganda, glorifying the Gulf War, the first monstrous crime by the United States against defenseless Iraq, a country that never attacked us. I am a patriot, from a long line of patriots extending back to a private in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. But I am not a militarist nor jingoist, and I am deeply ashamed of the crimes of the United States committed against the people of Iraq.)


Whitney performed the national anthem only once at the Super Bowl, but there are slitely different videos of it on YouTube. I looked for the NJ flag in the state flags shown in the video, but did not see it. Whitney's rendering of the anthem is a little odd, musically, in prolonging some notes unexpectedly, but ultimately very impressive, and moving, esp. now. It made us proud. Now it makes us sad. In the YouTube video you can see a cross-shaped earring dangling from her right ear. God and country. What happened, Whitney? What happened?
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We loved you, Whitney. Why didn't you?

Art Opening Friday; 'Circus Science' Saturday and Sunday

Index Art Center ("IAC") Opening Reception, 2/10, 6-10pm. I plan to start for Friday's reception long enuf in advance that if I have the kind of car trouble I had the nite of the last Index opening, I can still get there on time (which I did not do last time). I did, after all, have a soft tire and low battery again on January 27th, but still got to the Solo(s) Project House reception because I had started out early to get to two other places first, so could reinflate the tire and start the car with my booster pack and still make it to Solo(s) by 7:45pm, then to a supermarket afterward. So I anticipate I'll get to IAC to take pix to show here afterward. Here's the description from the IAC email announcement:

Ar[c]tic Flow

The ice fisherman sits alone tweaking his methods to achieve the best results. The only thing outside his little shack is the harsh cold environment, but this is no concern for the fisherman who works and waits for the catch. We can draw parallels in the way many artists work. The "shack" or studio is a place where an artist can be alone, and the space furnished with the tools needed to get the job done.

Fotos today are of the reception for the Newark Museum's artists-in-residence on Friday, February 3rd. This first foto shows Saya Woolfalk, center; Lowell Craig of the Index Art Center, seated, left; Matthew Gosser, in the distance beyond Ms. Woolfalk's head. Gosser and Woolfalk were two of the artists-in-residence.

We have playfully used the ice fisherman as a timely and wintery metaphor to represent how artists work with ideas and materials that reflect their surroundings. These surroundings could be the white, cold, flat environment of the Arctic, a blank canvas if you will. These artists have looked beneath the surface to find a flow, a movement of life interpreted in varying mediums and styles.

Organized by DC Smith & JL Prez.

Participating Artists:
Amina Ahmed
Katrina Bello
Marcy Chevali
Carol Davis
Dahlia Elsayed
Suzanne Goldenberg
Austin Thomas
Julie Torres
Audra Wolowiec
with Wes Berg & Shandor Hassan

Matt Gosser's display.

February 10 through March 1
Reception: Friday, February 10th, 6-10pm

Also exhibiting -
Reception Room: works by Javaria Sikander
27 Mix: works by Sophia Sobers

INDEX
585 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
www.indexartcenter.org
index.gallery@gmail.com
Gallery ph. 862-218-0278

Gallery hours:
Thur: 6-9 pm
Fri: 1-4 pm
Sat: 1-4 pm
Viewing appointments are welcome

ALL EVENTS SPONSORED BY
27 MIX AND KILKENNY ALEHOUSE
www.27Mix.com
www.kilkennyalehouse.net

"Circus Science" Weekend. The Newark Museum's biggest event of the year takes place both Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. Here is the description from the NuMu website.

Circus Science

02.11–02.12.2012, 11:30 am–4:30 pm
Saturday–Sunday
(Museum Opens: 10 am)

Museum Admission includes choice of one clown or magic performance.
Additional tickets can be purchased. [I don't see a price, but it's probably only a couple of bucks per person.]

Call 973-596-5150 for information on group registration or advance ticket purchase.

Admission to all performances and activities i[s] on a first-come basis.

The several artists' displays at the reception were in the studio/workshops of the Museum where art skills are taught.

Participate in hands-on activities, and discover the amazing science that makes circus performances famous.

These activities FREE with Museum Admission ongoing, 10:30 am–4:30 pm

+ Balancing Clowns

+ Balloon Art

+ Face Painting

+ Paint with Centrifugal Force

+ Treasure Hunt

+ Try Tightrope/Trapeze Equipment

+ Learn Juggling Techniques

+ Plate Spinning

This shows part of the waiting area outside the workshops.

Great Prizes!

+ Be a star! Win a chance to be in the clown parade at the Prudential Center (must be 14 or older)

+ Win a pachyderm masterpiece created by a circus elephant[.]

+ Win a family four[-]pack of tickets to The Greatest Show On Earth®[.]

+ With coupon from card receive $5 off each admission to the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus® at the Newark Prudential Center[.]

+ Free drawing for four round-trip tickets [huh? from-to??] courtesy of: JetBlue Airways.

Two winners will be selected for two tickets each.

Presented by [and with special performances by] the Newark Museum in collaboration with Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey® – The Greatest Show on Earth®

Slitely fuzzy foto of metalworking-instruction workshop. The flash version didn't turn out any better. I don't know why.

I showed a lot of pix of one "Circus Science" event in my blogpost of March 10th, 2009, and a couple more in my post of March 1st, 2009. I don't know if there will be a big, white tent in the Museum's garden this year.
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If you like kids, this weekend would be a good time to visit NuMu. But if you go to museums for peace and quiet, you will want to avoid Engelhard Court and restrict your visit to the art galleries. I suppose even the science galleries and planetarium are likely to have a lot of kids around.

I don't know why "Circus Science" is so early this year, so checked the Prudential Center website for the dates of Ringling Bros.' shows this year, and see them as running from March 1st-4th:

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents Dragons is a once in a millennium event that honors The Year of the Dragon. Circus performers from the farthest reaches of the earth have assembled for Ringling Bros: presents Dragons to showcase their astounding acts of bravery and astonishing athleticism. Ringling Bros. Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson presides over this fantastical celebratory tournament of circus champions that brings together mystic dragon lore with authentic circus feats. Dragons is a never-before-seen blend of renowned spiritual and real life legends that can be found only at The Greatest Show On Earth!

I shall have to investigate whether the effalumps are marching thru the streets of Downtown Newark in the wee hours of March 1st (or a day or so earlier), and if so, find the time and route so I can get fotos of pachyderms in Brick City. Of course, Newarkers have to be somewhat pachydermal (thick-skinned) to keep from getting completely bent out of shape at the absurd and nasty things said about this great city by the "haters" who haunt online comments areas to slander Newark, and by ignoramuses who are living in the 1960s. Even some decent people say dopy things. Last nite, for instance, David Letterman, in the Nicholas Cage segment, said, "Speaking of the undead, have you ever been to Newark?" Not funny.

Waiting area outside instructional workshops, Newark Museum.

Speaking of the old days, Gracie Allen on one of Wednesday nite's George Burns and Gracie Allen Show s spoke the phrase "How now, brown cow", and I wondered what color the Jersey cow is. Sure enuf, it's brown. The breed has no connection with NEW Jersey, however, but with OLD Jersey, the little island in the Channel Islands Dependency off the coast of France, the last remnants of Norman England's French dominions. The entire island of Jersey is only about twice the size of Newark, and looks, on the map, vaguely like NJ rotated 90 degrees left.
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Tho I have discussed old Jersey in this blog (February 23, 2007), the fotos disappeared when AOL closed all subscribers' online storage space.

Let me end this post with a slideshow of the Saya Woolfalk art show, "Empathetic Plant Alchemy" (which had a narrative soundtrack, a few words of which I missed) projected onto the ceiling of the Newark Museum Planetarium. I don't know that I have ever before seen an art show of that size (the Planetarium accommodates an audience of about 50, and the ceiling is perhaps 35 feet(?) across). I have shown others of Ms. Woolfalk's works here on September 27th, 2008, February 29th, 2009, and March 5th, 2009.

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