NY Mysteries May 29, 2020

 What a week! A Black man strangled by a former Minnesota police officer, a Black man attacked in Central Park by an entitled white woman, Netanyahu bragging about annexing more land from the Palestinians, and , as usual, our president ranting like a spoiled brat on Twitter. Anybody mention coronavirus? 

Yesterday I accompanied Rev. Micah Busey, in clerical garb, to Foley Square for a rally to honor George Floyd and other Black Americans killed by white Americans. I gave up estimating how many people were there. Four hundred? Five hundred?  On the periphery the police watched. It was noisy. The young crowd thundered “No peace. No justice!” There were the exhilarating moments of unity.  I left feeling smug about enduring the heat and the noise and the crowds. I hate/love rallies. And you?

I was going to include a cute homemade doc about dogs. Forget that. It doesn’t seem appropriate to switch to Disney world in the midst of our national tragedy, prejudice.

 Instagram has a perceptive analysis: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAyfFnaJbyL/?igshid=ah5uv5b266y4

NY Mysteries May 23, 2020

A lovely man died, Hecky Powell. He had a great barbecue place in Evanston, Ill. A friend from Evanston honored Hecky, a community leader, who offered scholarships, mentoring and jobs to hundreds of young Evanstonians, “You can be anybody,” Powell told young black men from Evanston. “The reason we’re rated number one on the North Shore in Chicago is because I outwork everybody, and that’s the key. You got to outwork them, and you know something? It’s real simple these days to outwork somebody, because nobody wants to work.”

The next time you’re in Evanston and want great barbecue just ask the way to Hecky Powell Way.

The Israelis continue to flout international law. In July the unity government will annex part of the west bank. This land grabbing against the Palestinians has gone on for decades. Who cares? Certainly not the U. S. Israel or the EU. Maumoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader,  has denounced the U. S. and Israel.

On a brighter note, dear friends treated me to a birthday party. I was driven, sitting in the back seat with mask, to the upper west side where a feast was presented in the backyard on land once owned by Audubon. Don’t I have wonderful friends???

A dear friend and wonderful host

A waterfall

 

 

A noble elm on original Audubon land

One of my hosts

Cute, huh?

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college. 

NY Mysteries May 15, 2020

FREE FREE PALESTINE!

Nakba Day was held yesterday, May 15. it commemorates the 1948 Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians from their ancestral land. The 2020 rally was carried on Facebook and sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK/ the BDS Movement/ the South African BDS Coalition/ Jewish Voice for Peace. It celebrates Palestinian solidarity through native speakers and performers of all ages. Ben Jamal and Stefanie Fox were the narrators. Jamal is of Palestinian descent and an English citizen. Fox is the Jewish Voice for Peace Director. Several young Palestinians spoke about their grandparents recalling May 15, 1948 when over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled and hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed. Yara Hawari speaking from Nabi Saleh, Palestine, talked about the ongoing control of her people and the annexation of their land. Ghada Karmi described being kicked out of their  Palestinian house in 1948. Her family fled to England where she was raised on her grandmother’s talks about England being the country that allowed the takeover. Janna Jihad, a very young Palestinian, likes to listen to her elders dreaming of going back to their land. She has never been to the sea and can’t go there because of the occupation. Remi Kanazi talks about his grandmother in 1948, seven months pregnant, being ordered and forced out of her house. Diana Buttu described her blindfolded father being driven from his home. Two years later Diana and her family fled to Lebanon. When they returned to Palestine their land had been confiscated. Their lease was not honored.

Nakba
2020

William Shoki, a South African student, spoke about similar treatment of black south Africans. They too were disenfranchised in 1948. The Israeli leader, Arial Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, approved and aided in establishing the South African apartheid. Shaki proclaimed that the young will never forget. Chief Zwelivelle Mandella of South Africa spoke of his support for the Palestinians. Stefanie Fox talked about being taught as a young Jew that the Palestinians were driving the Israelis into the sea. She discovered it’s the reverse:  Israelis  were and are driving Palestinians off their land. She  Invited her fellow Jews to support the Palestinian movement. 

Nakba
2020

Nakba, 2020

 

Henco Espag, Judson’s Musical Director posted this message on 3/27/20. Working with Henco is heavenly. Grab this opportunity. 

Hallooo Judson,

We are putting together a Judson Quarantine Artbook to feature creations inspired by our shared social distancing experience both for our virtual services and in a live in-person concert once we are all back together again.

Below is the website link to the contest and the full submission guidelines pasted in as well.  Please share this with everyone!!!!

We already received submissions within 10 minutes of posting.

Thank you!

Henco

https://www.judson.org/quarantine-artbook-contest

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college. 

NY Mysteries May 9, 2020

 

I borrowed this copy of Emily Bronte’s Spellbound from Ben Shepard’s blogspot.

As we all know the Brontes lived and died briefly. We also know that Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights. Her elder sister, Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre.

 Spellbound

“The night is darkening round me,

Patrick Branwell Bronte’s portrait of his sister, Emily

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.”

None of us can go  anywhere.

Shelter in place. 

If you have a place to shelter in.

The homeless can’t shelter in place. 

The plague keeps coming.

The losses, death, losses.

People screaming.

Quietly grieving.

Classmates, 

Teachers, 

Mothers,

A friend’s father, without a goodbye.

The funeral homes filled with bodies.

The morgues at capacity.

Each casket with a story. 

http://benjaminheimshepard.blogspot.com/2020/05/if-i-should-learn-in-some-quite-casual.html

 

Henco Espag, Judson’s Musical Director posted this message on 3/27/20. Working with Henco is heavenly. Grab this opportunity. 

Hallooo Judson,

We are putting together a

to feature creations inspired by our shared social distancing experience both for our virtual services and in a live in-person concert once we are all back together again.

Below is the website link to the contest and the full submission guidelines pasted in as well.  Please share this with everyone!!!!

We already received submissions within 10 minutes of posting.

Thank you!

Henco

https://www.judson.org/quarantine-artbook-contest

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college. 

NY Mysteries May 1, 2020

 

 Remember in the olden days when we went to museums, to dance performances, to the movies, to the opera, to dinner parties, to restaurants? Our isolation reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. One of the characters yearns for the days when Narnians were free to mingle, when Narnia wasn’t smothered in snow and ice and the machinations of the evil, frosty queen. 

Some photos of happier times. These are from an exhibit at the Whitney, 

Once upon a time at The Whitney

Once upon a time at The Whitney

 

Henco Espag, Judson’s Musical Director posted this message on 3/27/20. Working with Henco is heavenly. Grab this opportunity. 

Hallooo Judson,

Once upon a time at The Whitney

We are putting together a Judson Quarantine Artbook to feature creations inspired by our shared social distancing experience both for our virtual services and in a live in-person concert once we are all back together again.

Below is the website link to the contest and the full submission guidelines pasted in as well.  Please share this with everyone!!!!

We already received submissions within 10 minutes of posting.

Thank you!

Henco

https://www.judson.org/quarantine-artbook-contest

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college.