Thursday, January 22, 2015

Duet


This week's series commemorates LoFish Studios which will close at the end of January because of a rent increase.

With just about a month to empty 11 years of heart, soul and song, El and Walter recorded their last album Saturday.  

It wasn't just a place for their art to grow, but a place for New Yorkers of every ilk to sing, like the rockers, the hip hoppers, the opera singers, the jazzers.  

And the man who wanted to record a song for his father who had just died. 

***













  **
Related Posts:


The Sound Of Music

Sunday Memories of Stairways To Heave And Other Worlds Where Art Thrives

Elisabeth's World

In Defiance Of Being Silenced

Sunday Memories Of High School Stairs

Sunday Memories: Stairway to Heaven (Loews Movie House - Delancey Street

Elisabeth Lohninger

Between a Rock and a Hard Place There Is...







Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Sound Of Music


This week's series commemorates LoFish Studios which will close at the end of January because of a rent increase.

With just about a month to empty 11 years of heart, soul and song, El and Walter recorded their last album Saturday.  

It wasn't just a place for their art to grow, but a place for New Yorkers of every ilk to sing, like the rockers, the hip hoppers, the opera singers, the jazzers.  

And the man who wanted to record a song for his father who had just died. 

***
Elisabeth grew up in Austria, right by that big hill where Julie Andrews jumps around singing about how the hills are alive with the sound of music.

But Elisabeth didn't need a bunch of Alps to fill the world with everything she feels.  She came to New York, and with her husband, Walter Fishbacher, found other mountains to climb and sing from, and along the way built a studio for others to do the same.


When the Mariner and I slipped in to watch her sing farewell, the walls of that carefully constructed recording studio, sculpted with foam and wood to nourish each note, disappeared and we found ourselves on a endless vista, saying goodbye.

**
Related Posts:


Sunday Memories of Stairways To Heave And Other Worlds Where Art Thrives

Elisabeth's World

In Defiance Of Being Silenced

Sunday Memories Of High School Stairs

Sunday Memories: Stairway to Heaven (Loews Movie House - Delancey Street

Elisabeth Lohninger

Between a Rock and a Hard Place There Is...

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Sunday Memories of Stairways To Heaven
And Other Worlds Where Art Thrives


This week's series commemorates LoFish Studios which will close at the end of January because of a rent increase.

With just about a month to empty 11 years of heart, soul and song, El and Walter recorded their last album tonight.  

It wasn't just a place for their art to grow, but a place for New Yorkers of every ilk to sing, like the rockers, the hip hoppers, the opera singers the jazzers.  And the man who wanted to record a song for his father who had just died.


Originally posted Sunday, March 23, 2014

"Awww look at the peeling lead paint," El said.  "I'm going to miss this place."


But the building is about to be sold.

And the studio on the third floor where musicians can record their dreams for a reasonable rate will disappear into massive renovation bringing with it who knows... bars, discos, boutique hotels...places that allow the fantasy of having an after-party for some great work never accomplished.

Sorta like  Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

**
Related Posts:

Elisabeth's World

In Defiance Of Being Silenced

Sunday Memories Of High School Stairs

Sunday Memories: Stairway to Heaven (Loews Movie House - Delancey Street

Elisabeth Lohninger

Between a Rock and a Hard Place There Is...


Friday, January 16, 2015

Friday's Child is Loving And Giving
Which Is What The World Needs Now


Every day, Goldie and Jupiter keep my heart open just by loving me and giving me cuddles.

photo:  J.L. Wong

O.K. O.K. so maybe they just want to get fed.  Still... what a delicious way to be asked.  And let me tell you, when you're busy feeding cats you're not killing people

LOVE WINS THE DAY!!!!!!

From the guy who adopted Lily!!

Some of you may recognize the giant badass Shih Tzu in this cartoon... This is Lily, an amazingly bright but blind pup that Social Tees rescued last year. The super talented gentleman who adopted her just emailed them this fantastic drawing this morning -- so awesome!!!!



He writes:  "Dear Social Tees, Every year I hand-draw a holiday card, but this year's is very late due to my workload, but I wanted to share it with you because it features Lily! We wouldn't have her without you, so thank you, she means a lot to us. Again, belated Happy New Year, and all the best in 2015."

MORE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!


The way-too-cute pup with a heart-shaped face in the foreground arrived last month via Social Tees most recent Los Angeles Rescue Mission. He was extremely shy at the time, understandably -- he was found on the streets of LA, tossed in a high-kill shelter there, put on an airplane, and then transported over to Fifth Street. That's a lot for a sensitive little dog to have to go through! His absolutely amazing foster mom gave him all of the time and TLC that he needed, and he slowly but surely blossomed into the loving, grateful little boy that he really is. And wouldn't you know it... his foster mom fell hard and adopted him! 

She says: "Chico's new name is Atticus Finch. As you can see, he has really opened up. He no longer hides, hangs his head, avoids eye contact, or flinches when someone comes close. He will look at everyone and has become a big lover of cuddles. His mischievous side has surfaced, he likes to steal soft fluffy things (kids toys, hats, mittens...) and hide them in his favorite spot; behind all the pillows on my bed. Hope all is well and I look forward to seeing you in the new year!"



WANT MORE LOVE IN YOUR LIFE???

WANT PEACE AND GOOD WILL,  NOT JUST DURING THE HOLIDAYS???

ADOPT! 

FOSTER! 

SUPPORT!!!
 

SOCIAL TEES IN THE 
EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!



 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue


Thursday, January 15, 2015

Getting Up Close And Personal


Heading out to the North Fork (because that's what you do when rare friendship is involved) it was another chance to Ask.


Daniela looked me straight in the camera and said yes.   Then she smiled like the amazing young woman she was.

Because that's what you do when you are unafraid to look at who you are.

**
Related Posts:

Courage To Change

Rare Friendships: Coming Home

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Courage To Change


Jacques of Endless New York would get right up and personal and ask people if he could take a picture.  He got pictures that really piss me off because they are so beautiful and personal and intimate and a world where you could step in and go somewhere private and catch your breath.

photo:  Jacques Baudrier

The worlds that I step in and go somewhere private are often devoid of people.  Instead, they are filled with the empty nooks and crannies I wandered through in the deep of night by myself, wondering about life, liberty and what that office at 2 a.m. was really like.


When it came to taking pictures of people, unless I knew them, knew them very well...


...like Dana or Polly the cat...

...I skulked around and snapped away like I was a spy out of a Peter Sellers movie.  Obviously bad at being sneaky but thinking I was getting away with something.

I'd take pictures from far away...



... or up close on their feet...
 

...or at their backs...


I hated Jacques.  I hated his camera.  I wanted his pictures.

No, not really.  I adore him.  But jealousy makes us ugly human beings, especially jealousy that really is about Jacques doing something I was quite capable of doing.  Asking.

Ask, Jacques said.  Ask.  He even sent an article defending his case.  By Eric Kim.  Who said... Ask. 

So.  On a miserable winter day, rushing by the world, late for something, I stopped and looked at a living painting.

Oh, just walk by, it doesn't matter, said my cold feet.

No. Ask, said my eyes. 

Ask, I heard Jacques say in my ear. 

Ask.

Change is a horrible feeling and taking risks can be worse than getting car sick.

But not doing anything is worst of all.

The tailor smiled, gave a thumbs up and then went back to work.



**
Related Posts:

Endless New York

The Operative Word Was "AND"

It Was Her Anomaly

Sunday Memories:  Friending, Old School Style

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Sunday Memories of Rare Friendships:
Our Open Pantry, Our Neighborhood


E.V. Grieve announced it first and then the Mariner sent it to me at work.

I couldn't believe it.  We had just gotten coffee there.

As soon as I could, I went in.  The guys working the afternoon shift, whose faces I knew like I knew how the light fell across Second Avenue late in the day,  they didn't know anything more than the sign posted on the door.

After 40 years the Open Pantry was closing.

The nephew would be working tomorrow morning, the guys told me.  I could ask him.

I ran into Ann Marie and Michael coming out of the elevator.  "Open Pantry is closing!" I told them.

"No!"

It was shocking but she had heard they hadn't been doing well.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Robert, the mailman."

E.G. Grieve heard rumors the Pantry just couldn't complete with Starbucks.

Our safe havens, our soft corners, the places we hid in or celebrated in, they are all slipping away,  they are. 

But we are all still here.  We are.

The Open Pantry is closing.   Nothing left to do but love until we say goodbye.  And buy up a fuck-load of coffee.


The Open Pantry
184 Second Avenue
New York City
Openpantryynyc.com

**
Related Posts:

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Saying Goodbye To De Robertis

 It Was Olga's New York

E.V. Grieve - Open Pantry Closing

Tales From A Hard Days

Friday, January 9, 2015

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving
And There WhenThe World
Is Running Down

SOCIAL TEES SUCCESS STORY!!!!


From Charlie's parent: "I adopted Charlie in November of 2011. He has been my companion throughout graduate school and moved out to Texas with me! Charlie is the friendliest cat I've ever met and showers me with sweetness everyday. I'm so thankful I took him home. He's my little man."

  
ONE OF SOCIAL TEES MANY RESCUES
 


Neo, the adorable puppy

JOIN THE LOVE!!!! ADOPT!! FOSTER!!!!
  SUPPORT!!!
 


SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!! 
Social Tees  
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Rare Friendships: "Yet America is a poem in our eyes..."



When she comes home to visit, we do a lot of sitting together

or watching things together

or being in the same room as we read whatever it is we are reading at the moment together.

Those pauses in between the occasional words exchanged are where all the poems in the world gather to sing her praises.

And when she speaks, I learn more in that second than I could in a year

Like if that piece of writing worked

or how art filled the walls of a museum

or what to say when someone, looking at her name tag, asks her what kind of name that is

"American." she answers.

Five generation of her ancestors dance around her joyously,  and I know what to say when I get asked the same thing.

**
Related Posts:

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Wednesday, January 7, 2015

An Encore In Memorium
For Those Killed At Charlie Hebdo:
Use Your F*#&$*g Words


Originally posted April 16, 2013



10:30 at night, the United Nations still toils



Before my auspicious interview with a famous artist to be his intern, Florence  begged, "Please don't curse. And don't talk about sex."

I'm not sure where she got the idea I talked about sex with strange men who could or could not allow me gainful employment.  I had never slept my way - literally or metaphorically - into any professional commitment.

But the cursing? Perhaps she had forgot lessons learned at the feet of masters, me following her down beaten-up streets as she screamed at me or my father curses more foul and vicious than the shocking comments I sometimes spy on a niece's facebook page or now overhear on nicer streets.

Perhaps her spewing blew off enough steam that she was too tired to make a third attempt at stabbing her husband with the letter opener.  Perhaps it was why she only swung at us with open hands or closed fists, not with knives.

Perhaps, like my dad locking himself behind bedroom doors so he wouldn't destroy us, her cursing allowed her to say what was on her mind and not go to jail for murder.

In the middle of a 12-hour day hammering out words of peace, news came of the bombings at the Boston marathon.

It's tougher to find words than throw punches.  It's harder to curse than to destroy. It takes longer to build than to bomb.

But, if you really want to change the world, use your fucking words, asshole.  Use your fucking words.

**
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Getting Lost In The Dangling Conversation

Same War, Different Day

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Rare Friendships: Coming Home

Yeudi and me
Photo: Jim Burke

Yeudi did the impossible.  She got me to leave town to see her.  At a chicken farm.

O.K. not ON the chicken farm but close enough.

It wasn't just the allure of meeting a real chicken that did it.  It was knowing it had been years and years and years, maybe even decades since she had been fed real food.  

O.K. maybe she had good food but not real food.  If you don't eat whitefish salad or bagels or chopped liver or lox or bialies you become malnourished and forget your name. 

Besides, it had been years and years and years, maybe even decades since we could talk and laugh that laugh that makes stuff come out of your nose.

That's how we talked and laughed when we were baby girls surviving fist fights in the schoolyards of P.S. 110 and J.H.S. 56, or keeping our heads above water inside the walls of our homes, or attempting to stay alive as we tiptoed through the social minefield of the High School of Performing Arts or bumbled through adulthood when we, almost too young to be on our own, lived as roommates.

Nowadays we don't have bullies or pretty girls making our lives hell.   There are other things that encourage a long walk off a short pier.

 the Mariner, Jim and Yeudi cracking up about something
while Dottie hopes for food

These are different days, years and years and years, maybe even decades later.  Somehow Yeudi and me, born a week apart, got husbands and almost-husbands (me) born a bit more than a week apart and when we all sit down to eat real food we laugh and laugh and laugh until we are about to become little snot fountains, (We're all adults now so we can stop before it gets messy).

But in between all that, Yeudi, who holds many memories of those long-ago-days, tells me our stories.  My brain, such a sieve, I startle at her recounting and attempt to coax those times out from the fog that saved me then but has now left me without our history.

Still, these are such different days, years and years and years, maybe even decades later.  We no longer have to keep faces tough, backs straight and fists ready, at least not the way we used to.

Instead, with every word and memory, we get to come home to the heart and soul we always had when we were baby girls on tougher streets than the ones we live on now.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories Of An Encore On Rare Friendships: Yeudi

Sunday Memories:  Along Came Bialy

Sunday Memories Encore: Matthew 26:52

Sunday Memories Of High School Stairs

Sunday Memories: Moving Day

In Case Of Emergency

They Don't Have Real Food Where She Lives

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Sunday Memories Of An Encore
On Rare Friendships: Yeudi


This week begins a series on that rare friendship where home is rediscovered with every shared word and memory.

Yeudi

Originally posted June 14, 2009


This is how she looks today and it's also exactly how she looked 40 years ago when we met in 5th grade.

She was one of the new girls transferred from PS 134 on East Broadway to PS 110 on Broome Street. She was exotic and worldly and exciting. She was clean and graceful and unwavering.

I was a baby monkey on caffeine. I longed to be her elegant grace. I still do.

I had my first real birthday party at her house (it was a surprise). We suffered through the punches and grabbing and pushing at J.H.S. 56 together (she chased Willie Joe down Pitt Street after he sprayed her hair with Pledge. It was a fierce sight to behold.)

And after that we went on to survived the High School of Performing Arts where the dancers and actresses ruled the boys and us musicians had to be inventive just to be seen. (I gave up and hid in the staircase during lunch for two years.)

We ate, drank, and partied together and at some point in our late teens, maybe early early 20's, we were roommates in my first and only apartment. I still have her lamp, table and the dish, cup and bowl she left behind. She still looks like she lives here when she visits.

But what I remember most and always of Her New York was the day in 6th grade we got back our creative writing assignment. I don't remember what I wrote. But the moment I read hers my life changed. This, I remember thinking, is real writing. This is literature.


**
Related Posts:

Leaving Egypt On The Promise Of A Healed Knee

Sunday Memories:  A Room of Her Own. With A Door!

Friday, January 2, 2015

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving
And The Best Resolution EVER!

This is Your New Dog for Your New Year




This beagle/lab mix has an endearing demeanor and an impossibly adorable muppet-like face.

You can't even tell quite how muppet-like her little features are in this picture, but you can sort of get an idea. In person, it's literally mesmerizing to look her in the eyes. Her cuteness sucks you right in, and her warm personality keeps you hooked. Sasha is about 8 or 9 years old and has spent most of her life living in a sanctuary in the south. While she was well cared for there, this girl deserves to be in a warm bed at night surrounded by a loving family... so we brought her up to The Big Apple in hopes of finally finding her the life she deserves as she enters her golden years.

Sasha's foster mom says: "Sasha has the most gentle disposition of any dog I've ever met combined with a strong, wise soul. She's the one in a pack that exudes maturity, calm, and quiet, adding balance. She reads her audience well and always greets others with the most gentle approach. She is not phased around playful cats or dogs, and she's comfortable in a pack, whether it be humans or animals.

And as unassuming as she is, this girl is coy. She's so alluring to others. Even the biggest dog in the pack gladly takes the floor and gives her his bed to sleep in overnight. She is a charmer! She doesn't jump on furniture or take up much room at all and really just wants a nice furry rug or plush bed to lie in, and a window to see the outdoors. In the apartment, when she wakes from one of her long naps, she slowly and diligently scan the area to make sure all is in order, takes some water, or just finds a new spot to lie down, or a new dog bed to try out.

She is quiet. The only time I've heard a peep is a succession of muffled dreamy 'woofs' is when she is asleep at the side of my bed, where she's laid every night.

She is a slow and steady walking companion in the park and loves long walks. While she has some weakness in her back legs, you would never guess it when she is walking outside. This girl is determined and trots like a show pony with her tail wagging up in the air. She is an attention grabber, for sure. Now we just need one of her admirers to give her a forever stable home!"

INTERESTED IN ADOPTING? Complete an application at socialteesnyc.org!

URGENT!!! 
AWESOME CAT NEEDS 
A FOSTER HOME!!!



This gorgeous Cheshire cat needs a foster home now!!! Ruby is 9 years old and as wonderfully friendly as cats come. She loves to cuddle and be held, and she chirps (not meows!) for affection. She's overweight though and needs to get out of her cage so she can have some gentle exercise. Please help!!! Email samantha@socialteesnyc.org if you can give this girl a temporary home... and some love!!!


HAPPY HAPPY DAY!!!

That little puppy sleeping in a hand is now a big girl!!!

Social Tees rescued Reese fka Vilma this summer when she was just a tiny puppy... so tiny she could sleep in the palm of their hand.  She's about 6 months old now and looking like a gorgeous young lady!!!! 

Her family says: "You can see how much Reese has grown and changed since we adopted her. She is by far one of the most lovable puppies I have ever had. She is a huge daddy's girl and sleeps on my husband's lap all night and then in bed with her head on his shoulder... so spoiled... All the best for the new year, wish I could adopt more. (Maybe someday!)" 

Social Tees says:  "It's always so heartwarming and inspiring to see the abandoned animals we rescue go from rags to riches, flourishing in their forever homes. Happy New Year, Reese and family!!!!


JOIN THE LOVE!!!! ADOPT!! FOSTER!!!!
  SUPPORT!!!


SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!! 
Social Tees  
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Thursday, January 1, 2015

The Hallway Between Last Year
And New Hope




Usually the hallway of hell, in between that one door closing on my ass and the so-called new door opening to better things, seemed endless.

And I had already spent a fuck load of time in hallways, trudging through and through and through...

And really it just seemed like it was never going to end until...


... oh look.  It's the door.  To better things.  

Hope.

Happy Fucking New Door!!!!

**
Related Posts:

Walkin' After Midnight

The Door

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Waking To A New Year

Way past the time I was her "daughter" Florence would come visit, sit in the kitchen because that's where the booze usually was and there was a chair in the corner.  I'd lean against the sink and listen to her ruminate about her life.

I was asleep, she'd say.  I was asleep all my life.

I didn't quite understand.  To me, she was always awake.  Just someplace else.  Especially in those kitchen-visit days.  She was running wild like a 65, 70 year-old teenager, dancing with girls and having high-drama love.

I didn't quite understand that she was trying to wake up and rebuild a life she had slept through.  


The thing about sleeping is you don't know you are until you aren't.


**
Related Posts:

Letters At The Speed Of...

Yizkor (Remember) For Florence

The Old Bag

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Sunday Memories Of Jutta's Kitchen:
This Is What The Journey Looks Like


 Oh, let me take a picture of your hands, I beg Jutta.

No!  They're so... Look at them, she says.

They're incredible.  They're beautiful, I tell her.  I've always loved taking pictures of them.  They are the genesis, the beginning of everything...

Oh, well then, she says, giving the best girlish giggle in the world, they got this way from painting.

 **
Related Posts:

Jutta's Kitchen:  So You Say This Is Christmas

Friday, December 26, 2014

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving
And What You Really Wanted For Christmas


You unpacked all the presents and yet.... 


You wanted Santa to bring you
MAX THE SENIOR MALTIPOO!!!!!!!!!!

This spry little man is 15 years old but looks like a puppy. He was recently rescued from a high kill shelter in Los Angeles.

Sadly, like so many senior pooches he lost his home, his family, and life as he knew it when his former owner passed away. When nobody stepped up to take him in, he ended up at the kill shelter. Social Tees fell for him the moment they met him and brought him to the east coast with the help of Wings of Rescue a few weeks ago. 

Max is now living it up in the Big Apple, eagerly searching for just the right forever family. Max is a classy yet very spunky old boy. He's got all of the pluses of being a mature gentleman, but he's also retained the best of his younger years. 

He is wise, well mannered, loving with everyone, and generally very mellow but he also has an energy and liveliness you wouldn't believe unless you saw it. He's got so much youthful sweetness, it's hard to imagine he's a senior. 

Max is in great shape for his age, he's friendly with everyone he meets and great with other dogs, and he needs a loving, playful home where he can live out the rest of his golden years. He is crate trained, quiet, and hypoallergenic, but he comes on a little too strong for cats so he would do best in a home without any kitties. 

Interested in adopting him? Complete an application at socialteesnyc.org, and please spread the word!!!!

MEANWHILE
CHRISTMAS MIRACLES 
DO HAPPEN!!!!



BEST NEWS EVER!!!! LOTUS GOT ADOPTED TODAY!!!!!!!!!

Lotus's story has been told on Friday's Child . Now this girl has the loving family she has always deserved, just in time for the holidays.

We could not have asked for a better gift... for her or for us. We hope to keep you all updated on her adventures as she grows and learns through her new life. Thank you to everyone who provided her with the incredible support, care, and encouragement she needed to heal and blossom!!!!

ARE YOU UNABLE TO FOSTER OR ADOPT 
BUT STILL WANT TO HELP?


Social Tees needs to restock their supply of dog and cat food... and need all the help they can get!

If you have a little extra and offer some assistance, please donate!  They go through pet food, cleaning supplies, and chew toys like we breathe oxygen.

This holiday season visit their Amazon Wish List below. (All donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE)

SOCIAL TEES WISH LIST: http://amzn.com/w/WY8BHUIGRAAO

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

JOIN THE LOVE!!!! ADOPT!! FOSTER!!!!
  SUPPORT!!!


SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!! 
Social Tees  
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Jutta's Kitchen: So You Say This Is Christmas...


Xavi, V.'s son, on the look-out for Santa
Photo:  Amina Balley
V. said one of her biggest accomplishments was giving her son a proper Christmas.  She's not Jewish, so that's important. And it was still easy to wrap his presents because all she had to do was put him in the high chair and turn it the other way.

We started reminiscing about holidays, especially Christmas, that treacherous time when all that is missing becomes bright and clear and vicious and in front of you.

Do you have family and if so, can you visit with them and if so, do you want to and if so would buying presents break the bank and if not do you have a lover that you get to be with instead and if not do you have a friend who would include you in and if not how are you going to get through that loneliness...

Each year late November heralded the beginning of that obstacle course made from those questions that only left me wishing February 15th would finally show up so there could be a break from feeling like an utter failure at life, especially each time I saw a goddamn commercial filled with people who loved one another and I just couldn't figure how, how to get into that commercial and, really there's nothing more annoying that sobbing through a Coca-Cola commercial with no where to go.

V. fared a bit better.  She had some great times.  There was her friend's Gramma who, heading into her 90's and still sharp as a tack, would throw a Christmas Eve party to end all parties, with everyone, in V.'s own words, showing up with moonshine and having a blast of joy.  V. always meant to head to Mass after Gramma, but with all that love and family and happiness, more prayer would only be like gilding the lily.  She loved that Gramma and her friends and being home with them.

Her description of that party jogged something tucked away.

I must have been 17, maybe 18, maybe more... but not by much.  None of those questions had been answered until Jutta invited me up to spend Christmas Eve with her and the small group of friends that made her neighborhood home.

I don't remember where we drank and ate and celebrated.  But, as the evening drew to a close, Jutta shoved a small envelope into my hands.  It was a Christmas card with $10 in it.  A lot of money for a single mother working as a clerk in the 1970s to give and a lot of money for a kid supporting herself to get.

I don't remember how I got home that night.  But, as I walked up Broadway or down Broadway, about to make the trek from the upper west side to the east village, I remembering feeling something I hadn't ever before, but I would have recognized it any where and I didn't even need to be in a soda commercial.


It was joy that can only come from being home with the people you love the most.

**
Related Posts:

Jutta's Kitchen: Painting From The Inside

Remembering Sunday Memories On Monday: Christmas/Time

You Got Your North Star, I Got Mine

Encore Of A Sunday Memory: Visiting Santa

Ghosts Of Christmas Past

Sunday Memories: His New York His California His Home - Christmas In July

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Jutta's Kitchen: Painting From The Inside

Jutta continues to paint and to amaze.  

This week begins a series heralding the solstice and art that can only emerge out of an internal spring. 

A rare dinner at Jutta's.  Fay joins us.

The kitchen table pulled into the living room and the canvases carefully tucked away so that the Chinese food doesn't spill on them.  Her son, sick with the flu, has left two good bottles of wine, one of which we drink.

The hearing aid, being what it is, doesn't always direct her to who is speaking.  It has no subtlety.   She has to ask at times, "Which one of you is speaking?"

But, in the long run, it doesn't matter.  The ideas do.


And they don't flow out.   They don't explode out.  Its more like they burst out, like a ton of Christmas lights bursting out in the dark.

It gets later and later and soon it is just me, the Mariner and Jutta.  The food is put away, the table returned to the kitchen, the chairs back in their spots so she doesn't bump into anything.

The long weeks have caught up with everyone and home beckons.

But wait, I say.  We have to look at your paintings.

Suddenly, it is as if we had just arrived minutes ago.


Curiosity does that.  Because we are all bouncing like baby goats, as Jutta starts pulling out canvases.

"This painting is just beginning," Jutta says. 


She doesn't know what it is and where it is going, but she is following something here.

It's what writers are going through, what artists are going through, this return, she explains.  Getting in touch with that root self, that primitive being within, that "caveman".

With sight now relegated to a corner of her right eye, she is no longer looking at a landscape outside her window or a still life on her table.

She is returning her gaze to  her soul, that universe moving beyond the speed of light that was in her from the moment she emerged into the world.


 And when she does, she sees everything


**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories:  All Together Again In Jutta's Kitchen

Jutta's Kitchen: Part One

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Two

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Three


Jutta's Kitchen Revisited

Jutta's Kitchen Blooms

Jutta's Kitchen Meets The Internet



Sunday, December 21, 2014

Sunday Memories Of
Jutta's Kitchen That Stops For Nothing
And Other Solstice Miracles

Jutta continues to paint and to amaze.  

This week begins a series heralding the solstice and art that can only emerge out of an internal spring. 

Originally post February 21, 2012.



Even after getting hit by a car, even after years of litigation, even after failed cataract surgery...

...even after finding herself legally blind, even after her hearing got worse and worse and worse, even after....


... Jutta still paints.

And you, with your dreams and your passions, what did you do today?

***

Jutta's Kitchen: Part One

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Two

Jutta's Kitchen: Part Three


Jutta's Kitchen Revisited

Jutta's Kitchen Blooms

Jutta's Kitchen Meets The Internet