CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Grandpop goes digital

Garland Thompson was monkeying around with a large camera on the bench just outside the Allens Lane Art Center when, as I was about to go in, I paused to talk with him. Thompson who took his first photography class at Allens Lane 42 years ago, is a professional journalist. He had just recently purchased this, his first digital camera, and was saving the first shot to capture his grandson’s two year-old birthday celebration that same day. Soon he would be traveling to Panama from where he will report for the Philadelphia Tribune and WYRP radio in Baltimore.

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YOU’VE BEEN DOING PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE… Since 1969 when I learned here at Allens Lane Art Center with a photographer named Larry Kanefsky. He taught us how to do the lab stuff as well as composition tricks and all kinds of nice stuff. OK, so this is my camera, it’s a Canon single lens reflex camera. I bought it because it is an SLR Seeing is the difficulty with a camera rather than hearing (oops, let me get the dot) You can tell I’m not real familiar with it, I just got it! (There we go) I bought this camera so I could shoot my grandson but also because I’m going to Panama. I’m going to be doing some reporting for WYPR radio in Baltimore and, among other things, I helped to convince them that radio in the Internet age is really TV, and they had to do pictures. too. So I’m going to do some stories for them and also bring back some stories for the Philadelphia Tribune, one of my old papers and, some probably who knows, some will be souvenir shots. So that’s my big thing. I bought this camera so I could get back into photography which I used to truly love ‘cause it’s so fascinating. Now I’m really quite fearful that it’ll be too absorbing. So that’s my story. YOU’RE GOING DIGITAL TODAY? I’m going digital today. AND THE FIRST THING YOU’RE TAKING WITH THIS YOU SAY IS? My grandson Joshua Monk is two this week and we’re having a celebration for his birthday. So I’m going to go, be grandpop, and shoot his pictures. HAVEN’T SHOT A SINGLE THING YET? No, I haven’t shot the first thing. I’ve been very careful to not shoot anything so that Josh is the first thing I do. Journalist and author Garland Thompson.

Epilogue: “What I like about it is it has a diopter adjust. I can actually look through this camera and not use my glasses There’s a diopter lens adjustment."

Watch video here

At age 85, her Mom becomes a nun

 

“’Nobody dies at the end of this book. Try not to let this fact mislead you. As far as my Mother is concerned, it is important to distinguish between what death actually is and what it isn’t. There’s a body and there’s a soul. One dies, the other doesn’t, ever. And then there’s how I feel about it, which is complicated.’”

“My name is Susan Morse and I have written a book called, “The Habit” which is the story of my Mother who at age 85 in the middle of a health crisis which I was shepherding her through the medical system, became an Orthodox Christian nun. And it’s the story of our relationship…

She was on a quest. She was spiritually hungry her whole life. In the 1940s during the wartime she met my father and married him just as many people did -married a man who was about to go off to war. It was a relationship that was never really a true, passionate romance and there was a lot of trouble there. But they stuck it out. They raised four children together and end up actually quite content with each other by the end.

After the kids moved, out she started experimenting with lots of different religions and kept changing, Episcopalian to Roman Catholic to a different kind of Roman Catholic back to Episcopalian, all these different things. And she’s an artist and at one point she began taking these workshops painting Byzantine icons. And that is something you have to pray when you’re doing it, the workshops tell you.  The whole system is really, really strict technique. And she discovered that her icons which she was feeling very satisfied with the process of doing those, were not legitimate in the Orthodox Church because she was not an Orthodox Christian.

My Mother really believes in- if you believe in something you really have to throw your whole self into it. So for her to be a Christian is not enough. She needed to go all the way.

She says now she dreamt about being a nun from when she was a little girl. She was 85 when she became a nun and she was frail. There was no question of her taking on a job. For the frail and elderly ones – she became, literally, she’s called a ‘house nun’, which means she stays in her house, and she prays. And that’s what she does!”

Susan Morse, reading from the preface to her newly published book, “The Habit.” Morse will be reading from her book on Wednesday, January 25^th in the Bombay Room at the Chestnut Hill Hotel and on January 26^th at Headhouse Books in Society Hill. Both events are from 7:00 to 8:30.

Watch video here.

 

 

 

TV Weather Camerawoman

Fox 29 TV camerawoman gets sent out every day to different places to shoot the weather and people out and about for the station's morning show. She may be sent to the Jersey shore but won't have a chance to jump in the water. Or she may be sent to the scene of breaking news, like the guy who was barricaded in Marcus Hook. Watch video here.

WHHY and the federal funding cut to NPR - CEO Bill Marrazzo

WHHY President and CEO Bill Marrazzo doesn't diminish the importance of the federal grants to public radio but points out that federal dollars consitute only a small portion of the station's radio stream. WHYY relies  primarily  on the support of thousands of indidvual radio listeners, TV viewers and website visitors and also on sponsorships by corporations and foundations. Watch video interview here.

Gadfly, Radio Host Ed Feldman writing book, interviewing candidates

SO ED, WHY AREN’T YOU TORMENTING CHESTNUT HILL ANY MORE? I got tired of it. I tire easy and I thought other neighborhoods need to be tormented a little bit, too so I didn’t want to concentrate all my efforts in one place. Besides, I think I’ve proved my point. After the attorney general investigated and fined the Chestnut Hill Community Association, it kind of seemed a natural ending of things. Certainly it will be in the book I’m writing…. I have an Internet radio show that airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 10 am called “Morning Feed.” It’s on Gtwon Radio dot com. And right now I’m interviewing all the city council candidates in district 8. This morning, April 5th, I broke some news about an allegation of extortion by one of the candidates against another.” Ed Feldman, radio host at WHYY Voter Forum, Commodore Barry Club, Mount Airy, Philadelphia. Watch video interview here.

Heaving the Inquirer and NY Times

The winter is not fun, especially when it snows.YOU GOT TO BE SKILLED TO DO THIS. Well after a while you get a little knack to it. It’s all wrist and elbow, on the wrist, repetitive motion injuries. You’re doing this every day, you’re flipping and it’s all elbow and wrist so after a while you get sore. My shoulders hurt mostly when the papers are particularly heavy. The black Friday paper, Thanksgiving Day paper, the thing probably weighs about five pounds and everybody gets one.. . ARE YOU THE GUY THAT THREW THE NEWSPAPER THROUGH MY NEIGHBOR’S DOOR? ‘Yep, that was me. WHAT HAPPENED? I think it was a Saturday or Sunday paper and I was trying to get it up on that little landing and it just kept going and knocked the pane of glass out and I can fix that, it would cost me maybe $30, She called the people that come out and fix your glass, it was $250.WAS THAT ON YOU? Oh yeah. Edward Jones, newspaper deliveryman. Watch full video here.

Jaime Perez shoots Kyudo archer

"I'm a student at Antonelli School of Photography in Erdenheim and today I'm shooting the Japanese Cherry Blossom celebration. We have to do an event for a photojournalism class and I chose to do one outside, enjoy the spring weather a little bit, get to meet some nice people. So this is Emilio. He's been doing the archery for twenty years. I wanted to come here to get a little bit of action pictures and just learn a little about his meditation archery and see how he does it. He's pretty good. He's been shooting some bulls eyes and the arrows are really neat- they go all the way through the board." Jaime Perez, Antonelli School of Photography student at Morris Arboretum. See video here

TV Broadcaster Natasha Brown Visits J.S. Jenks Elementary for Career Day

Germantown Courier , Mt. Airy Express are Finito

So this is it for the Mount Airy Express- Germantown Courier? Finito. We are done as of the issue of February 11th. That’ll be our last and it’s on the streets now as a matter of fact. Two things happened. First of all the recession. It’s hurting everyone. It’s certainly hurting the print media badly. We suffered some erosion anyway but I think we would have weathered it. However our parent company [Journal register company]is in very bad financial condition and anything that could be cut had to be cut for their continued existence and we were one of the sacrifices…I do know the gap will be filled because it is a big gap.." Karl Biemuller, Editor