Looks like things got a bit out of hand recently at the local char-broil restaurant. It was a popular place, so hopefully they will get an insurance settlement and rebuild in the near future.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
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My brother and I took a little road trip out to Lancaster, PA over the weekend. Why Lancaster? ‘Cause we hadn’t been there before. And we wanted to meet Andrew, The Martini Czar. (Also, plenty of interesting arts culture around town.)
Well, we found the Czar holding court on Friday night at the Rosa Rosa Pizzeria on Harrisburg Pike. (Not to be confused with the Rosa Rosa Ristorante, a few blocks away; the Pizzeria is past Franklin and Marshall College, going west away from downtown). Members of his royal family were in attendance, and the Czar stayed busy mixing drinks for his loyal subjects. Andrew mixes a mean martini. And the food at the Rosa2 was very good, definitely up to New Jersey Italian restaurant standards.
But if you go, don’t get thrown when you walk in the front door and see just another pizza joint before you. You need to walk along the side, to a room in the back. You will find a door opening to the restaurant section, where Czar Andrew sets up his martini bar on Friday and Saturday nights.
Here’s a shot of the Czar (on the right in shades of royal gray), along with two family members (Joe in red and Bryan in blue). These people are definitely the real thing. And so are those martini’s!!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Personal Reflections ... Photo ...
Back in the early 1990’s, after breaking up from a short but intense romantic relationship, I went through a period of fascination with monks, hermits and the contemplative spiritual life. It was a good time and it lasted more than a few years. In many ways it is still part of me today, even though I didn’t have it within me to join a religious monastic order, or live a truly eremitic life. But my life is still a good deal more quiet than most.
During my years of “quiet discovery / discovery of the quiet” in the 90’s, I became a big fan of Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton, who lived as a hermit for the last decade of his life. Well, sort of, anyway. Merton still had a lot of human contact, and one of his secular friends, John Howard Griffin, got him interested in photography. I recently picked up a used copy of a wonderful photo book by Griffin published way back in 1970, just a few years after Merton’s untimely death on a trip to the Far East. It’s called “A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton“, and it presents a fair number of artistic photos taken by Merton, and also photos of Merton by Griffin. Within the latter set are a series of shots, all black and white and quite wonderful, showcasing Merton’s living quarters (his concrete block ‘hermitage’ out in the woods of Kentucky). It gives a nice look at the day-to-day stuff like pots in the kitchen, the sink, his bedroom, a working desk, etc.
Well, I’m not anywhere near the spiritual or artistic caliber of Merton and Griffin. But these photos nevertheless inspired me to get out the camera and get a few “quotidian” shots around my own apartment and hermitage-of-sorts. So, here is my kitchen stove on a Saturday AM, with some cooking projects underway. And the cabinet shelf where I store my hats, gloves and scarves, ready to fight off any cold and inclement weather. In black-and-white, no less. But yea, Merton probably got by with a lot fewer hats, gloves and scarves than I do, and not nearly as much other junk on the shelves. It’s tough being a simple hermit in the 21st Century!
Monday, June 6, 2011
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Nostalgia time. Here’s a shot of some Navy guys at the Pearl Harbor air base circa 1945. The war is either over or nearly over, and the mood at Pearl is much lighter than 4 years before. One of these sailors is my dad. I’m not going to say who he is, except that he’s not the guy making the funny face. Thank goodness!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
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I still have a lot to say, but it looks like my blog page needs some imagery. I usually post a nice scenery shot or street scene, but today I’m going a bit abstract, a bit noir. Actually this is simply a picture of the moon that went bad. But as with art (and with life), sometimes what goes bad is actually pretty good, if viewed in the right way. So give this a try, see if you can find a viewpoint where this is more than just another digital camera meltdown.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Personal Reflections ... Photo ... Religion ...
I’ve been practicing Zen with my local sangha now for a little over a year, and in this time I’ve swallowed down a big dose of Buddhism. But to be honest, I’m still having indigestion from it. Buddhism just seems so negative, and ultimately it seems quite un-Zen.
At the core of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths — which are so very negative about the world. These 4 truths actually fold into 2 basic notions: life is pretty much all about suffering, but Buddhism holds the formula to attain some sort of deliverance from that suffering. This suffering is transmitted by the cycle of birth and death and karma transmission between lives. 
The deliverance is called Nirvana, and is not explained or described other than that the cycle of birth, death and karma are ended permanently once Nirvana is reached.
Sounds pretty grim, actually. Zen can seem grim too, with plenty of long, harsh, boring practices prescribed to attain “enlightenment” — whatever that is! It’s not exactly Nirvana, but it’s not exactly NOT Nirvana.
Yea, yea, more of that lovely eastern double-talk. For me, though, Zen has been something much brighter. My community and teacher seem to focus on the light more than the dark; we talk about the unseen perfection of the moment. We talk about breaking thru the illusion of incompleteness. We say that you already have it all, even as you continue to search and struggle. And we enjoy each other’s company while together pondering these great imponderables.
Last weekend I finally got out for my spring hike up in Harriman State Park. Just a quarter mile south of the Elk Pen lot is this little babbling brook. I stopped to take it in, of course, and it made me think — why do we need Nirvana? What would be so terrible about being born again into a world with babbling brooks like this?
Well yes, I realize that this is also a world of terror and misunderstanding and loneliness and betrayal and war and chaos and sickness and anxiety. But is that the rule, or is the world good at the core? Do we need to achieve Nirvana, freedom from re-birth; or do we need Zen enlightenment about the goodness made possible because of our birth? The Buddha promised deliverance; Zen promises “right here, right now, right in you”. I’m with those who say that Zen is more Taoist than Buddhist in nature. I believe that it’s Tao that can experience a stream like this and know that despite all the bad (bin Laden, the killing of bin Laden, etc), at heart all is good. The Tao knows that Nirvana is here and now — so, I’m hereby renaming this location “Tao Nirvana Falls”.
Well, unofficially, anyway!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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I’ve been totally geeked out over the past week. I took on an assignment, volunteering to set up a new web site for my zen group. Well, I’m not exactly a cutting-edge web designer, but I can still do OK with your basic Web 1.0 stuff from 1998 (html tables and a little bit of CSS, not even any Javascript). They didn’t need anything too fancy, but I still had to come up with a visual design and an organization scheme for the content. I also had to write up most of that content! Zen according to Jim.
Earlier this week I was toying around with it, not terribly seriously; but then it all started coming together, almost by magic. It seemed to gain a life of its own. I got sucked into its wake; it was bossing me around, not the other way. Thus, I spent every spare minute both at home and at work, even started robbing myself of precious sleep (hardly get enough as is).
Today I’m feeling the consequences, zoned out near the crash zone. But the new site is almost done, although » continue reading …
Sunday, March 27, 2011
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Here’s a strange one. Is it the surface of some planet where water or some other kind of liquid (perhaps liquid methane, if far from the sun, or melted rock, if close to it) is flowing? Or is it the inside of some kind of living tissue, say a liver or a muscle? Or are these some kind of strange trees or weeds growing?
No, actually this is right from my own kitchen. I was cleaning a wok after having a nice stir-fry veggie dinner, and I sprinkled on some scrubbing powder (akin to Comet, but the supermarket generic brand) and then swished some water around. After a few minutes, these strange and interesting patterns formed on the side of the wok. Somehow, they share something of the physical processes within living tissue or the surface of a very dynamic planet (akin to earth, with its many river systems).
As Mister Spock would say — “fascinating”.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Personal Reflections ... Photo ...
As mentioned before, I am a proud member of the sangha at the Clear Mountain Zendo in Montclair, NJ. Our sensei (Dharma teacher), Carl, often emphasizes during his talks that the core theme of Zen is “this moment, right now”. That reminds me of duct tape.
Duct tape is a “right now” kind of thing. When you patch something up with duct tape, it’s today that you’re worried about; certainly not next year or next month, maybe not even next week. Duct tape keeps you going for now, but it makes no guarantees whatsoever for the future. It’s not built to last. Duct tape reflects a Zen vision of reality, in a way.
I’m not at all sure that Carl would agree with this. And I can’t imagine the great temples of Kyoto using duct tape to patch up the sitting cushions or the paper and bamboo shoji screens. But hey, Zen is becoming Americanized; and in the process, duct tape might eventually play a role in promoting awakening and awareness. I’m sure there’s a koan in the making somewhere, regarding duct tape’s versatility and it’s “in the moment” character!
PS — with all thoughts and intentions for the suffering happening now in the home of Zen, Japan.
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Just three weeks ago, northern Jersey was mostly buried under various layers of ice, slush and dirty snow. We had a rough stretch of snowfall and cold temps from late December thru mid-February. We were one big storm away from “coagulation”, from a transportation clog-up that would have shut down stores and offices (given our extreme dependence upon automobiles and trucks to move us around and deliver the things we want to buy and sell).
But then it all just stopped. No more snow, and temps started rising into the 30s and 40s, even some 50s here and there. We might get a surprise snowstorm yet (March can be fickle), but for now, this is what remains of one of many big snow banks that towered over us and swallowed up all the sidewalks and parking spaces and road lanes, just a few weeks ago. Goodbye till next winter, let’s hope.