Blossoms Backed By Blue

Yeah, Another Blogger139 Comments

“To me, flowers look best when there are masses of them.” Those words came from a guy who, overall, doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. Namely, from me. Once in a while, though, I realize I do know what I’m talking about. which led me to post that comment recently on In The Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life, Lynette d’Arty-Cross’s fine website that focuses on the beauty of the natural world.

What’s better than flowers? They are bursting with life, yet are peaceful. And, I’m certain, they connect positively with just about every human on Planet Earth, even with evil motherf*ckers. I wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, if the residences of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and the surrounding grounds, boast flower displays that would knock your socks off.

Yes, I believe that you can’t have too many flowers. I began to embrace that opinion strongly circa 2018. I’m not sure why it hadn’t dawned on me much earlier. Whatever, I’m happy that I eventually wised up.

As fields of flowers don’t exist anywhere near where I live, I’ve developed a semi-obsession with flowering trees, which contain oceans of blossoms in relatively concentrated spaces. Those trees are miraculous. And, seeing that their performances don’t last for more than a handful of weeks, it behooves a flower aficionado to feast his or her eyes upon them while the feasting is good.

The spring season, here in southeast Pennsylvania, USA, was in pretty full gear by the second half of April. Various species of flowering trees were strutting their stuff. So, when a nice sunny day rolled around on the 22nd of April, I decided to take advantage of it, knowing that the blue skies would help the blossoms to look their very best. I wasn’t wrong. As I rambled for an hour through my neighborhood and an adjoining neighborhood, I soaked up the loveliness of thousands upon thousands of tree flowers, getting as close to them as I could, and allowing plenty of blue to enhance the views. My phone’s camera immortalized my walk. A few samples of its work accompany this story.

You know, when I left my house to go flower-hunting that late morning, I didn’t know that my mini expedition was taking place on Earth Day. I thought that Earth Day, an excellent event, had been celebrated two days prior. When you think about it, though, every day should be Earth Day. If humankind were a whole lot smarter than it is, individuals, governments and businesses would be doing whatever it takes, urgently, to try and repair the wounds that we’ve inflicted upon our gorgeous orb since the start of the Industrial Revolution about 250 years ago.

However, I’ve read (click here) that, despite substantial inroads made by renewable energy sources, fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) remain dominant, accounting for about 80% of global energy usage. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane) produced by the burning of fossil fuels are the main culprits behind climate change. That 80% figure needs to drop enormously in order to mitigate climate change’s manifestations: global warming; rising sea levels; extreme weather events; droughts; forest fires and floods, to name some of the biggies. Analysts, though, are divided as to when, or if, this might happen. Even under the best-case scenario, depressingly, enormous quantities of fossil fuels will continue to be burned for many years to come.

And don’t get me started on deforestation, plastic pollution and other mammoth non-climate-change-related crimes we have been committing. Holy shit, it’s absolutely incredible how destructive, and self-destructive, our species is.

On that note, I now shall sign off. By the time this story is published I will have bathed in the beauty of flowering trees several more times. They are good for my spirits. I damn well need them.

Love, Love, Love

Yeah, Another Blogger141 Comments

A few weeks ago, I, an art lover, spent an hour surfing the web, learning about the numerous outdoor sculptures dotting the University Of Pennsylvania campus. Much to my amazement, I discovered that one of the late artist Robert Indiana’s famous LOVE sculptures sits smack dab in the middle of the university’s grounds.

LOVE Park, Philadelphia

Now, I’d been fully aware of, and had seen multiple times, two other of his LOVE sculptures, both of which reside in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. They have become tourist attractions, especially the one in a park within a stone’s throw of City Hall. That park, in fact, is known to just about everyone as LOVE Park, rather than as John F. Kennedy Plaza, which is its official name.

But it was news to me about the University Of Pennsylvania, a major Philadelphia institution located a mile from downtown. This meant, of course, that Philadelphia displays three LOVE pieces, which is fitting, since The City Of Brotherly Love is one of Philadelphia’s nicknames. New York City, by the way, is the only other municipality in the world with as many as three. (Per Wikipedia, more than 80 LOVE sculptures are scattered around the globe.)

Well, being one who enjoys his mini adventures, I decided I should visit this trio of creations soon. And all on the same day, no less, which I was certain nobody had ever done before. Shit, I’m old as hell and heretofore had no claim to fame whatsoever. It was time to make my mark, no matter how incredibly insignificant it would be!

Sister Cities Park, Philadelphia
University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Thus, late last month I hauled my aged ass aboard a train that, in an hour, took me from my little town to the heart of Philadelphia. Five minutes later, there I was in LOVE Park. Fifteen minutes after that I strode into Sister Cities Park to examine its AMOR sculpture (Robert Indiana produced versions of LOVE in various languages; amor means love in Spanish and Latin). And I made my way to Penn’s sprawling campus from there, eventually locating and admiring its LOVE piece. Mission accomplished!

Why are there so many LOVE sculptures in the world? Why do people gravitate to them? I’m not an expert on anything, let alone love. But it’s pretty clear to me that love, in some respects, makes the world go round. Our planet, which might easily and accurately be viewed as a horror show, would be even more unsettling were it not for the love that connects nearly each person with at least a few of their fellow beings. People need love and want to love. Even if they don’t know it.

And so, Robert Indiana tapped into something elemental when he began inserting love into his artworks. In 1961 he used the word for the first time, in a painting, not a sculpture. He made his initial LOVE sculpture nine years later, and over time the demand for sculptural follow-ups took off. I suspect that the demand was boosted tremendously when, in 1973, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp with Indiana’s LOVE image on it. That stamp sold like hotcakes.

I think that the simplicity and the warmth of Indiana’s LOVE design are the reasons for its success. Four letters in basic colors. Nothing more. The letters cling to one another for dear life, the O nestled against the L and the E as if it were in a womb. The LOVE design makes us drop our defenses and think that —yes! — love is where it’s at. It’s all you need, as The Beatles famously noted. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to have water and food too. In any case, one thing for sure is that few artists ever create iconic works. Robert Indiana, without any doubt, did.

1967, the year of the Summer Of Love, was the height of the hippie movement, when it seemed that peace, love and understanding had a chance of putting the human race on a golden path. As we know all too well, that didn’t exactly pan out.

1967 also was the year in which All You Need Is Love, by The Beatles, made its appearance. It would be inappropriate of me to end this contemplation without including their live performance of the song, whose message has resounded loud and clear ever since. The event was part of a broadcast called Our World, the first ever to be transmitted to a worldwide audience via satellite. Home from college during summer break, I, with my brother, watched The Beatles do their magical thing on a tiny television in my bedroom. The presentation mesmerized and excited us. Those were special days.

Click on the following link to view The Beatles in action:  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mtbyq

A TV Series, A Confectionery, A Song

Yeah, Another Blogger136 Comments

“Neil, how come you usually write about things you enjoy, rather than about those that, in your opinion, bite the big one?” I asked myself the other day.

“Well,” I answered, “I’ve ripped into people I loathe. Trump and Putin, primarily. And I’ve discussed situations that worry me or piss me off. But there’s no denying that my natural orientation is to comment about aspects of life that ring my bell.”

“I understand,” I replied. “There’s no reason right now for you to mess with your natural orientation. So, let’s take a look at some of your recent bell-ringers. And, maybe, your readers then will tell you what they’ve been into of late. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong!”

Okay! First up is a miniseries my wife and I watched two months ago: Escape At Dannemora, seven episodes in length and available on Paramount+ and elsewhere. It had been on our to-be-viewed list for a couple of years. Fortunately, we finally got around to it. It bowled us over. I place Escape in the pantheon of miniseries I’ve encountered, along with The Queen’s Gambit, Anxious People, The Investigation, Godless and a handful of others.

Escape At Dannemora came out in 2018, three years after the true events from which it draws its inspiration. Set in the town of Dannemora, in rural upstate New York, the show aims its beam at David Sweat and Richard Matt, convicted murderers imprisoned in Dannemora’s Clinton Correctional Facility, and at the married prison employee (Joyce Mitchell) who became emotionally and sexually involved with them. Ultimately, Mitchell helped them escape from jail.

Escape At Dannemora is not a docuseries. Anything but. All, or nearly all of its dialogue is imagined. After all, it’s not as though conversations between Sweat, Matt, Mitchell and the story’s other principals were recorded. And what dialogue! Completely realistic. No artificial ingredients. I’d never heard of the scriptwriters (Brett Johnson, Michael Tolkin, Jerry Stahl), to whom I now publicly tip my hat. As I do to Paul Dano (Sweat), Benicio del Toro (Matt) and Patricia Arquette (Mitchell), the actors who employed the scripted words to create characters as nuanced as French pastries. Ben Stiller directed the production with economy and precision. As couldn’t be more obvious, I highly recommend this show.

My dad loved halva, a moist, semi-sweet treat that, as I learned from doing a bit of research for this piece, originated well over a thousand years ago in Persia (present-day Iran). Unlike him, I wasn’t infatuated with the product, but ate it now and then while growing up. Halva disappeared from my diet, though, when I was in my 20s, maybe earlier, for reasons I’m not sure about. Possibly my obsessions with pizza and Cheez-It crackers left no room for halva, a product that isn’t easily found in stores in my country (the USA), and which the majority of the world’s population likely never heard of.

And probably I’d never have had halva again were it not for my pals Cindy and Gene, who bestowed sesame-based halva, the variety I am familiar with, upon me and my wife Sandy twice in the last several months (there are other types of halva in addition to sesame-based, as the Wikipedia article, the link to which is in the above paragraph, explains).

“This a weird gift,” I thought to myself when I saw what Cindy and Gene had presented to us on the first occasion. Man, how wrong I was!  Halva was the perfect gift. That wouldn’t have been the case with the too-dense halva made by the Joyva company, the brand I knew in my youth. But the halva they’d chosen, from the Seed + Mill firm, is incredible. Its sesame paste is perfectly balanced with chocolate and salt. And the texture, light and slightly granular, is wonderful. Hallelujah, I’ve been blessed!

And finally: Some songs have the power to bring you up short and make you say, “Holy shit, this is fantastic!” I Want To Know, by the quite obscure rhythm-and-blues group the Gay Poppers, did such to me two weeks ago when the tune burst forth from SiriusXM Radio’s Carolina Shag channel.

I Want To Know came out in 1960, and the Gay Poppers were from North Carolina, USA. Not much else about the song or about the group can I find online. Except that the recording at some point became popular in parts of the dance-club world. It makes me want to dance, because its beat won’t quit, and because the Gay Poppers’ vocal prowess damn well is off the charts. Without further ado . . .

A Nice Day

Yeah, Another Blogger158 Comments

Twelve days ago, after paying our bill at Barbuzzo, a restaurant in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, my wife and I exited the establishment and then walked a few blocks to Jefferson Station. There, we caught a train that returned us to our suburban town. Halfway between Barbuzzo and the station I said to Sandy, “This was a nice day.” I wasn’t the least bit surprised when she said she had been thinking the same thing.

Yup, our worries and woes were in hiding during the five and a half hours we spent in Philadelphia that Thursday, first at The Philadelphia Flower Show and then at Barbuzzo. I don’t know, maybe I’d been sprinkled with a heavy dose of magic dust before leaving home in the early afternoon, because I was cool, calm and collected in Philly, as relaxed as when I’m drifting off to sleep. Even the substantial crowd at the flower show didn’t bother me in the least. “Hell,” I said to myself, “everyone here has just as much right as I do to get up close and personal with the exhibits.” What? I, whose nerves often are easily jangled, actually felt that way? I did. I sure would love to be in such an at-ease frame of mind far more than I normally am. Will the transformation occur before my time expires on Planet Earth? Well, “miracles” are known to happen. But I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve been living in or near Philadelphia since the mid-1970s, but for decades never paid any attention to The Philadelphia Flower Show, a famed annual event. In 2016, though, almost on a whim, Sandy and I decided to go. I liked the experience, and now have attended five times. This year’s production, which ran for nine days, was as sweet as summer fruit, despite being held in a non-descript hall large enough to accommodate a number of jumbo jets.

Each year’s flower show has a theme, 2024’s being United By Flowers. I’m all for unity and, like just about everyone, am pro-flowers. So, I couldn’t go wrong. Excellent flowers were almost everywhere in the exhibits area. Ditto for other forms of flora. Sandy and I spent two and a half hours admiring the many installations, doubling back at times to re-examine the five or six that had particularly wowed us. We spent an additional 30 minutes wandering around the vendors section, where more products than you could shake a stick at — and not just horticultural items — were for sale.

Besides the beauty and creativity on display, was there anything else about the show I liked? Affirmative. I admired the diversity of people in attendance. They ranged in age from those that hadn’t yet reached their first birthday to old f*ckers such as me. A wide range of races and cultures were on the scene. And numerous folks with mobility issues didn’t let the enormity of the hall keep them away. Wheelchairs, motorized scooters and canes abounded.

Around 5:00 PM, Sandy and I heard dinner’s call. So, we bade farewell to the flower show and made our way to 13th Street. Philadelphia’s restaurant scene is amazingly strong, and a four-block-long section of 13th Street is one of the prime destinations for restaurant goers. We couldn’t get into Darling Jack’s Tavern, our first choice. But 50 feet away was Barbuzzo, an Italian eatery we’d passed many times but had never frequented. In we went. The place was mobbed, dimly lit and looked cozy. Could they accommodate us? Sure, but only at the chef’s counter, where two stools apparently had been waiting to greet our rear ends.

Happy with our perches, we watched meals being cooked five feet away from us, in pans sitting atop the burners of a stove as solid as an army tank. The burners’ flames, and those from the nearby wood-fueled pizza oven, kept us good and warm. I kept glancing at the oven, whose fury fascinated me. Its portrait was the only photo I took in the restaurant.

We kept things simple at Barbuzzo, whose menu ranges wide, opting for a salad, a Margherita pizza, beer and wine. Everything was delicious. And, before we knew it, it was time to head home.

At 8:06 PM, we arrived at Jefferson Station, giving us very little time to catch the 8:10 train. If we missed it, we would have had to wait an hour for the next one. F*ck that! But we didn’t miss it. Moving quickly through the waiting area and down the stairs, we reached the train platform just as the 8:10 was pulling in. Nice.

Edgar Reewright Tries His Hand At Kid Lit

Yeah, Another Blogger137 Comments

It has been a while since I’ve mentioned Edgar Reewright, my longtime editor, on these pages. The last occasion was nine months ago, when he and his wife Loretta were deciding whether or not to accept Elon Musk’s offer to join Elon’s SpaceX senior citizens lunar program. Well, in the end they would have signed up. But before that could happen, Elon, in late June 2023, pulled the plug on the incipient project, whose initial lunar landing by seniors had been scheduled for 2026.

“Neil, Musk eats it!” Edgar told me on the phone last July. “You know what his main reason was for cancelling? Adult diapers! Shit, can you believe it? These were his exact words when he called to give me the news: ‘I’m most sorry to inform you, Edgar, that I’m deep-sixing the senior citizens lunar program. You see, every oldster already in the program is dependent on adult diapers. And you and your wife, on your applications, indicated that they are essential for you too. The SpaceX rockets would have to double in size to accommodate the numerous boxes required for this sanitary product. Not to mention the problem of what to do with soiled diapers. We couldn’t just open a hatch and toss those bad boys into outer space, after all. Well, maybe we could, but if we did and the word got out, the negative publicity would devastate my businesses. Edgar, I’ve got to go. Not to the bathroom, but back to work. Goodbye.'”

“Bummer, my man, for sure,” I said to Edgar. “I know that you and Loretta would have loved to kick up your heels on the Moon. And I damn well might have applied to the program too. Oh well, such is life.”

Leave it to Edgar, though. He didn’t dwell on the SpaceX disappointment. As always, he moved forward with gusto. Case in point: When I spoke with him on the phone a few days ago, he told me he’d just completed writing a book for preschoolers.

“Neil, I’d never written a book of any kind before. But I needed a creative challenge, seeing that editing the pap you turn out for Yeah, Another Blogger isn’t exactly a soul-satisfying experience.”

I bit my tongue, responding instead with kind words.

“Why, Edgar, that’s wonderful. You’re a worldly person, rich with experiences and memories. I have no doubt your book will connect with developing minds flawlessly. What is the book about?”

“I’m glad you asked. Unlike your blog pieces, which exemplify the word wooden, my book is a hold-onto-your-hat tale about a set of young twins, a brother and sister. One day they decide to play hooky from school. I’d like to read the opening sentences to you. Okay?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

Jill and Bill are seven-year-old twins. They live with their parents in a small town in Colorado near the Rocky Mountains. They hate school. “School is for suckers,” they like to say. Their parents always are worried, since Jill and Bill say it so often.

“Hey, Bill, let’s skip school today,” Jill suggests early one Monday morning. “Heck, nobody in our class likes us, so they won’t miss us. And our teacher probably will be glad we didn’t show up, considering all the problems we cause.”

“Gee, Jill, that’s a great idea. After Mom drops us off at school we’ll sneak around to the back of the building and head to the mountains. I’m sick of Mom and Dad, so I want to stay away from home for at least a week. We’ll start forest fires and do lots of other fun things. Are you with me?”

“You bet. Let’s get ready,” says Jill.

“What do you think?” Edgar asked. “Want to hear more?”

“Spare me, Edgar. Holy crap, are you out of your f*cking mind?  What you’ve written is incredibly inappropriate and warped. No preschooler should be exposed to anything like this. You’ll never find a publisher. And if you self-publish, avalanches of condemnation will rain upon you. Edgar, I’m seeing you in a new light. A dark light. I’m not sure I want you to be my editor anymore.”

Edgar held back comment for many seconds. Instead, he gulped. Multiple times. Finally, he spoke.

“Uh, are you sure about all of that? I never had children, which puts me at a disadvantage when determining what might be a good read for little kids.”

“Trust my judgment, Edgar. If this is the kind of subject matter you feel the need to tackle, then do a major rewrite, with young adults as your intended audience.”

“Alright, I’ll take your advice. Or maybe I’ll just throw in the towel. In any event, am I still your editor?”

“Yeah, you are. I’d be lost without you. Plus, occasionally you give me something to write about. There’s a lot to be said for that.”

“Thank you, Neil, thank you. You’re the best. Well, not the best. Not by any means. But you truly are sort of okay.”

Faces

Yeah, Another Blogger161 Comments

A week and a half ago, Philadelphia Museum Of Art opened its arms nice and wide when my wife Sandy and I entered the building. Then, with feeling, it embraced us. “Yeah,” I thought to myself, “this is going to be a good visit.” And it was. How could it not have been? I mean, over the years I’d roamed through PMA’s galleries more than 100 times, coming away invigorated each trip. The museum rocks.

Arriving with no advance plans as to what to see, we took a look at the museum’s website after showing our PMA-membership cards at the admissions counter. Any number of special exhibits listed on the site, ranging from small to large, piqued our interest. An hour and 45 minutes later, we’d toured them all, plus other gallery spaces. Whew! Had we covered too much ground a bit too quickly? Probably, but little matter. In any event, the museum was readying to close at that point, so off we went to retrieve our car in the museum’s parking garage. The visit, though, didn’t fade from my mind.

Sketch of The Potato Eaters, by Vincent Van Gogh. (This image belongs to Philadelphia Museum Of Art)

Faces! I’m still thinking about some of the face-centric artworks I saw at the museum, more so than the landscapes, seascapes, town scenes and city scenes, and abstractions. Maybe that’s because Sandy and I began our trek at a mini exhibit whose centerpiece was a privately owned, seldom-shown-in-public sketch by my favorite artist, Vincent van Gogh. The drawing, from 1885, is a rendition of The Potato Eaters, an oil painting Van Gogh was working on at the time in the Netherlands, the country of his birth. That painting is now generally considered to be one of his most important pieces.

The five folks in the sketch are Dutch farmers, a hard-working family that never had, and undoubtedly never would have, more than the minimum necessities needed to get by. Van Gogh didn’t try to portray them in exacting detail. He wasn’t a precisionist. His intent was to get to the heart and soul of these people. Hell, getting to the heart and soul was his intent in every one of his works, no matter what the subject matter. And he almost always pulled it off. His enormous popularity developed largely for this reason, I think. Posthumously, needless to say, as the general public was unaware of Van Gogh during his lifetime. (Van Gogh moved from the Netherlands to France in 1886, and died there, by his own hand, in 1890.)

Portrait Of James Baldwin, by Beauford Delaney. (This image belongs to Philadelphia Museum Of Art)

On the opposite side of the museum’s ground floor, hundreds of feet away from the Van Gogh sketch, Sandy and I admired a portrait of James Baldwin, the American writer, social activist and deep thinker. Painted by Beauford Delaney, a devoted artist whom success mostly eluded, the work, painted in 1945, depicts Baldwin in his early twenties. It captures him brilliantly, with bold strokes and an expert disregard for photographic-like realism. As a result, Baldwin comes alive on the canvas. Van Gogh would have approved.

Many other faces greeted us from PMA’s gallery walls that day. I’ll comment on only two of them. They are the visages, as some of you will recognize, of myself and my better half. Man, there was no way I was going to let pass the opportunity to snap a photo when I noticed our reflections in a mirror designed by Stephen Burks. The mirror was part of a dazzling exhibit of Burks’ modern interior-design items.

Somewhat amazingly, it is the only picture I took in the museum that day (the other two pix in this story are from the PMA website). That’s because, while at PMA, I had no intention of writing about Sandy’s and my visit and illustrating the story with photos captured by my phone’s camera. I just wasn’t in a reporter-on-the-scene mood. And yet, this essay emerged anyway. Well, all I can say is, “You never frigging know.” Ain’t that the truth!

Driving Me Crazy

Yeah, Another Blogger150 Comments

As readers of this publication know, fairly often I make mention of the facts that I’m f*cking old (my internal tree added its 76th ring a few months ago), and that I ain’t thrilled about being way closer to the end than to the beginning of my residency on Planet Earth. I’m not obsessed or anything like that with these thoughts, but they clearly are on my mind.

Still, the nature of my life isn’t all that different from what it was 25 or more years ago, except that I no longer work fulltime. I’m in decent shape and health, and I continue to pursue my interests: writing pieces for this website, for instance, and leaving the comfort of my abode to take in concerts, movies, art exhibitions, restaurant meals and the great outdoors pretty regularly. I’m damn lucky, overall. I have little to complain about.

That being said, I’m now about to lodge a major complaint, as there is one activity that annoys the crap out of me and puts me on edge. Consistently. Up until about 15 years ago it didn’t, which makes me think that becoming old as dirt has made me more sensitive to its challenges. Or maybe I simply reached an inevitable breaking point. Whatever, here’s what I’m referring to: driving my car.

There’s no such thing as a casual, pleasant drive anymore. Not for me, anyway, a guy whose nerves apparently are half-shot. I’m just fed up with the enormous number of vehicles out there, the roadwork projects and lane closures you’re destined to run into most days, and the tricky situations you constantly have to navigate. Not to mention the assholes running red lights, tailgating, and blithely turning in front of oncoming traffic. Basically, me no like!

Hell, even on my quiet neighborhood’s residential blocks (I live in Willow Grove, a town near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), it’s a miracle when a delivery truck or other vehicle isn’t partially or fully blocking my way, or when my view of potential cross-traffic at intersections isn’t obscured by cars parked head-to-toe along the curbs. If I resided in Philadelphia or some other city with a good public transportation system, I could make do without a car. Here in the burbs, though, I need one. So, I grit my teeth and keep my fingers crossed when behind the wheel.

On my way to the supermarket, on Old York Road.

The other day was a classic, driving-wise, and not in a good sense. There I was, in late afternoon, hoping to make a right turn out of my neighborhood onto Old York Road, a major corridor. My destination? A supermarket about three-quarters of a mile from my house. Holy shit! I couldn’t turn, because traffic was backed up for 500 or more feet on Old York, the result, undoubtedly, of a train sitting at, or approaching or leaving the Willow Grove train station (I wasn’t able to make out exactly what was going on). After what seemed like forever, I nudged my way into a long line of cars on Old York. And several minutes later, the vehicles in front of me finally able to inch along, I reached and crossed the railroad tracks. At last, the supermarket was almost within shouting distance. Hallelujah!

On my way home from the supermarket, on Old York Road.

What made the afternoon extra special is that I became enmeshed in a similar situation on the way home from the market. As I neared the train tracks, the gates that descend when a train is approaching did their thing. Down they went, the red lights attached to them flashing. A train eventually pulled into the station and eventually continued on its way. And eventually I arrived home. Man, I could have made the trips to and from the supermarket faster on foot than in my car, a laughable and pathetic truth.

Okay, rant over. In memory of the days when driving commonly was fun for me, I’ll leave you with a smoker from Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down A Dream, which was released in 1989. The recording, as potent as freedom, almost is enough to convince me that carefree driving experiences might come my way once again. Here’s hoping.

A Whole Lot Of Colors

Yeah, Another Blogger146 Comments

Like a zillion other folks, I’m a sucker for fireworks displays. I feel deprived when I don’t catch at least one of them each year. My wife Sandy and I saw magnificent fireworks in Philadelphia this past July. And a fine show was gifted, once again by Philadelphia, to us and our pals Cindy and Gene (and a host of other celebrants) on the final evening of 2023. The four of us watched that New Year’s Eve extravaganza, an annual Philadelphia affair, from atop a parking garage near the Delaware River. In the middle of the river sat a barge from which the rockets were launched.

(Photo by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin)

On the garage roof, I behaved exactly as I expected I would. Meaning, I oohed and aahed as the air shook mightily and the darkened skies filled with starbursts (mostly in stately whites, golds, greens and reds) that danced and interwove for all they were worth. I damn well had a great time.

Still, a day or two later I was in need of further blasts of colors, though I didn’t recognize their call right away. Bold, brash colors, as it turned out, not the more subdued ones that predominated on New Year’s Eve. Was I a bit down in the dumps for a couple of days after NYE, and subconsciously figured that avalanches of eye-popping hues would snap me out of it? Could be. Whatever the case, five days into 2024, by which time I was clear about what to do, I entered Willow Grove Park, a three-level indoor mall located a hop, skip and a jump from my house in the burbs. I knew that heavy doses of just-what-the-doctor-ordered awaited me at the mall’s enormous arcade, whose space formerly had been occupied by a JCPenney department store.

I’d been to the arcade before, always as an admirer, not a game player. Man, it’s something else. Game console after game console after game console fill the arcade’s two floors. I don’t have a clue how to play any of them. But who cares? The games are a color extravaganza. On that January day I allowed their oversized personalities to conquer me.

What’s more, they were loud as hell, something I should have remembered from previous visits. Even louder than fireworks, being in a somewhat confined space as they are. Man, my poor f*cking ears, longtime victims of tinnitus, were greeted by a nonstop outpouring of screeches, whams and bams. Did the racket cause me to flee? Hell, no! I wanted an immersive experience.

Eventually, after becoming fully immersed, I departed. I quickly forgot about the arcade’s din, but not about its dazzling colors. They’d impressed the heck out of me. And invigorated me. I’m thinking about their vitality right now as I type these words.

Funny, though: It’s one thing to be impressed and invigorated, and quite another to be truly in love. Yes, for all my adult life I’ve been a seeker of colors that pack a mighty punch. But I sure don’t want to be in their presence anywhere close to all the time. That would be way too much sensory input. I’d become overwhelmed and exhausted.

However, there is a color I never tire of being around. It’s the one I saw when I stepped onto my house’s deck a half hour after returning home from the mall. Looking up at the sky’s gradations of gentle blue, I thought something like this to myself: “Yo, blue sky, I’m yours! Come on down and wrap yourself around my sagging, wrinkled bod!”

Well, the sky sure as shit ignored my invitation. Maybe it’s hard of hearing, or maybe it just can’t stand the sight of me. I’m not one to hold a grudge, though. Thus, I’ll conclude this story with a recording of Blue Skies, a lovely song composed by Irving Berlin. And who better to sing it than Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. I think you’ll like it.

It’s A Wonderful Life . . . Or Is It?

Yeah, Another Blogger153 Comments

My better half and I jointly watch an hour or more of television fare five or six evenings each week. Mostly we dial up series, with the occasional movie thrown into the mix. During the second half of December, however, we went movie-crazy, by our standards, what with five flicks passing before our eyes. In chronological order, they were: A Thousand And One; A Million Miles Away; Maestro; Rustin; It’s A Wonderful Life. All came out last year, excepting It’s A Wonderful Life, which, since its release in 1946, has ascended to an exalted status reached by few films. I’m now going to devote a few words to it and to A Thousand And One, as they, unlike the others on the list, seem to be in no hurry to fade from my mind. They made a strong impression on me and got me thinking.

I’d seen It’s A Wonderful Life once or twice before, but not in ages. Not blessed with the world’s finest memory, I might as well have been viewing it for the first time last month, so few of the scenes did I recall. Well, all I can say is, “Wow!” IAWL deserves its immense popularity and the high esteem millions of folks hold it in. This is a great movie, one that pulls at your heartstrings and does its darnedest to make you believe in the basic goodness of humankind. Hats off to that.

Frank Capra, also of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and It Happened One Night fame, directed It’s A Wonderful Life. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, be aware that spoilers lie ahead. I’m confident they won’t lessen your enjoyment should you choose to view it.

IAWL tells the tale of George Bailey (played flawlessly by James Stewart), a generous, caring individual who discovers that his company, through no fault of his own, suddenly is on the verge of bankruptcy. Distraught, and finding no way to right the sinking ship, he decides to put an end to his earthly existence. The money his wife Mary (the superb Donna Reed) then would collect from his life insurance policy would keep her and their children sheltered and fed for a long while.

Moments before George is about to carry out his plan, a heavenly force — Clarence, a low-level guardian angel trying to earn his wings — intervenes. Clarence’s efforts, and those of Mary, save the day. George learns that his importance to his family and community is immeasurable, and that his many friends truly love him. Anyone whose heart is not encased in granite will find themselves tearing up at It’s A Wonderful Life’s happy ending, an ending that implies that never again will George allow despair to conquer him. George will be okay.

But will Terry, a main character in A Thousand And One, be okay? That’s a worrisome unknown in the powerhouse drama written and directed by A.V. Rockwell.

We first meet Terry (played by three actors, one for each time period the movie covers) in the mid-1990s. He’s six years old at that time, a foster-care child lonely for his absent mother Inez. Portrayed with swagger by Teyana Taylor, Inez is armed with eyes that don’t miss a thing.  She is barely into her twenties and always has lived on society’s edges. Inez re-enters Terry’s life after being released from prison, soon taking him, illegally, from his foster parents. For the next eleven years she tries as best she can to raise him. Ultimately, however, circumstances catch up with them big-time.

A Thousand And One pulls no punches. Set mostly in New York City’s Harlem section, it often is as gritty as a sandstorm. I’ve given away much of the ending of It’s A Wonderful Life. I won’t do the same with A Thousand And One, whose concluding scenes I didn’t see coming. Those scenes left me concerned, not for street-savvy Inez’s prospects, but for those of shy and gentle Terry. For the most part, I’ve led a stable and comfortable life. A Thousand And One has me counting my lucky stars.

What a world we live in. So much poverty and inequality. So much violence and emotional trauma. So much intolerance, indifference and deception. That’s the way things always have been. And, I believe, always will be. There also is beauty in our world, of course. And love and joy and kindness. It can’t be denied, though, that life is a very rocky road for multitudes of people. Too many Terrys, and other unfortunates, are out there. If only it were otherwise.

Art On Wheels, Part Twelve (Thanks, Philadelphia)

Yeah, Another Blogger155 Comments

It had been half a year since I’d hauled my scrawny ass around the streets of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, searching for handsomely decorated trucks, vans, buses and other wheeled objects. I was itching to track down another bunch of those bad boys, photograph them, and then compose and publish a new installment of Art On Wheels, a series I’ve grown quite fond of. And so, amidst favorable weather conditions, I hopped aboard a train in my suburban burg three Monday mornings ago. One hour later I arrived in downtown Philly. The game was set to begin.

However . . . I didn’t slip into game mode as effortlessly as I’d expected, because, from the start, some of Philadelphia’s many charms began to distract and seduce me more than slightly. For instance, 19th century townhouses as stately as anyone might wish for. Rittenhouse Square, a perfectly designed neighborhood park. Skyscrapers whose glass facades, in daylight, flaunt fabulous reflections.

It almost got to the point where I considered putting Art On Wheels on hold and writing a piece about the magnificence of The City Of Brotherly Love instead. But that wouldn’t do! Hell, I was on a mission, and I needed to see it through. And so, refocusing, I doggedly looked here, there and everywhere for noteworthy vehicles. Even though I didn’t spot quite as many as I’d have liked during the two hours I spent pounding the pavement, I found enough of them to quench my thirst quite thoroughly. In all, I took portraits of 17 specimens. The six that rang my bell more artistically than the others illustrate this article.

Yes, things worked out well in the end, as they always have in Philadelphia. Being a natural-born worrier, though, I had my doubts at times that day, since each Art On Wheels expedition is in fact a bit of a crapshoot. The odds, of course, were in my favor. You’d think that past experience would have proven to me emphatically that more than a few enterprises making deliveries or providing services in Philly want their vehicles to stand out. That’s just good business sense, right? In fact, it’s surprising, when you think about it, that the exteriors of a high percentage of commercial trucks, vans, etc. are pure vanilla. Flair isn’t in their vocabulary, but it sure wouldn’t hurt if it were.

Do you have favorites among the six vehicles pictured in this story? My top three are the ones promoting Junk In The Trunk, Orbit Water, and Budweiser beer (the slogan “official beer of the shift change” is meant to honor hard workers, such as Shayna Raichilson-Zadok, the chef who is proudly pictured).

Choosing among those three isn’t easy. However, I’m going to go with the candidate that makes me the happiest. Namely, Orbit Water. The truck’s artwork is oh so refreshing. And the smiling guy in the design is the epitome of good cheer. He would make an ideal salesperson for almost any product or service. Excepting cemetery plots and colonoscopies, needless to say, and a handful of others. Orbit Water, you are A-OK in my book.

Let me conclude this opus with a sidenote: For several years I’ve been issuing, without fail, a story every other Tuesday (Tuesday in my time zone, that is). However, seeing that Chanukah has begun and will continue for a few more nights, and that Kwanzaa, Christmas and New Year’s Day soon will arrive, this is a good time for me to step back for a short while. Thus, I won’t be publishing on what would have been the next scheduled date (December 26). But, assuming I remain above ground, I’ll return with fresh material on January 9, 2024. Happy New Year, everyone!