CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Flips parking authority the bird for boot

A carpenter from Media doing work in Philadelphia fumes when he encounters the parking authority immobilizing his parked car with a big yellow “boot” for unpaid parking tickets.

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[I’m] coming out from lunch and I see them right here putting it on and I run over as they’re putting it on and they’re, “Oh, we can’t do anything,” and I say “Are you serious?” They tell me they don’t have a key for it but there’s another guy with a van that has a key for it. I mean it’s just a moneymaking scheme. The PPA isn’t even owned- is not even a part of the police department. It’s its own entity. It just makes me so mad And then I had to be on the phone like forty minutes to get this thing taken care of and I still have to go to work.  I have six million things to do that don’t involve me waiting for someone to take a boot off. And then they say three hours. Then the other guy says they could be here within in an hour and a half to unboot it so it’s just ridiculous.  And now I have to call and see if someone will come and unboot my car. WHAT ABOUT THE TICKETS? My outstanding tickets. I didn’t even know. I knew I had two but I had more than $500 of outstanding tickets. And I can pay that because I work and I am able to pay that. But if you didn’t have a job or your unemployed or in between anything, you just can’t pay that. And then I have to call the homeowner that I’m working at and make sure that I can still come finish the job because she’s on a time schedule. I’m on a schedule.  Like Jesus Christ, it’s upsetting… A little known fact about the PPA is that it’s not even a part of Philadelphia. The money doesn’t go to Philadelphia at all, no aspect of it. It’s a company based out of Maryland-

I THINK IT MUST. SOMETHING MUST COME TO THE CITY. Well, they promised a percentage of it to go to the education system but instead of doing that they took that money and put it into research development, basically creating kiosks, all the stands where we put money in to get a little ticket for it to expire and press pay more tickets.  They developed those kiosks so they couldn’t employ somebody to do it, to go around and check. They could have less meter maids and have less jobs in the city of Philadelphia so that they can make more money. I mean it’s ridiculous. Carpenter James Jenkins of Media, PA by his booted car on Germantown Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

Blind, they sculpt

Michael Gieschen, who lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa, sports a tee-shirt emblazoned with a group of walkers under the words “Blinds to Go” the name of his team (blind art students from Allens Lane Art Center and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The team walked in the Foundation Fighting Blindness Vision Walk to raise funds to research and combat retinal diseases. Shown here in the Allens Lane Vision through Art class, is Gischen with the parrot fish he sculpted, poised above coral. The family has become enamored of the parrot through vacations in the Caribbean. Shown with him is daughter Kara who is helping out with the final stage of his work, applying brilliant colors, which Gischen is very particular about, naturally, as he worked as a graphic designer before losing his sight. Watch video here.

Carol Konopinski teaches the Vision Through Art class at the Allens Lane Art Center in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. The class which is open only to those who are legally blind has been going on for 25 years and the artists work mainly in clay but are branching out into mixed media. ---------------

This is the best day of the whole week. I live for Wednesday mornings … Hi, welcome to Vision Through Art. We’re a sculpture class for the blind and visually impaired. We have artists here who have a range of vision to no vision. And You have to be legally blind to be in here. Even though the teacher and the assistants are not, that’s OK. Someone’s got to have vision- stupid sighted people! We have a great time. It’s a super family. We’ve been going for almost twenty-five years now. We have a great group of artists and they do anything from small to large pieces. We work mainly in clay but we’re moving out into mixed-media pieces. So we’re doing a lot of really fantastic work here- working on the wheel, sculpture , papier-mâché, you name it we do it they’re game for anything…It looks like we’re going to have another day of mass chaos as usual but hey, you go with the flow and enjoy it. Chaos is good! It’s all about the creativity and the chaos… Frank’s going to be working on wedging and getting back on the wheel… Betsy’s got a piece to finish up, a little girl and a dog and then Plato is working on a piece that he’s going to make a mold of but he’s still finessing and getting the shape right so he’s being the master sculptor right now. Carol Kopinski, Teacher, Allens Lane Art Center Vision Through Art class. Watch video interview here.

Betsy Clayton sculpts very realistic human and also imaginary creatures despite being legally blind for many years at the Vision Through Art program at the Allens Lane Art Center in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.

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Wait a minute, maybe I can turn the table over and maybe it’s white on the other side. YES, IT HAS YOUR NAME ON IT. This is my piece that I think of as an undersea creature. I don’t know what I’m going to call it. I was thinking “Riders Under the Sea” or “Undersea Riders”… I used gold, red and green. At first I painted it all green and then I dabbed on colors to make it look fantastical. WHAT CAN YOU SEE OF IT? It’s a blur to me. I mean I can see that there’s color on here but I don’t know what the colors actually are or where they are. When I painted them I knew where I wanted certain colors. THEY’RE PRETTY BRILLIANT DO YOU SEE ANY OF THE COLORS? Are they brilliant? Not to me, they’re just dull. DO THEY HAVE A SHADE, THE COLORS? Green I can see. But everything looks green to me. . . The back of him is supposed to be like an octopus thing, tentacles. WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE? They have no arms you see. Because they’re really not people. They’re things that live under the sea. Creatures. I don’t know what they do under the sea. But, they like to ride the monster or whoever he is… I see leaves on the trees all winter. I do. If I look at a tree, it has leaves. HOW IS THAT, WHY? I don’t know. EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT THERE? It’s not in full leaf like it would be in summer but I see green all around the trees because I see green. That’s probably why. Betsy Clayton, Vision through Art, Allens Lane Art Center, Philadelphia.

How would pro-life student regulate abortion?

A student who attends a Christian high school describes himself as "pro-life" and ponders how he would regulate abortion.

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I had off because I didn’t have a midterm test at school. I came in to work, 10:30 and after I’ll go sit down somewhere and study for the exam. WHAT’S THE EXAM ON? History, U. S. History. AND THIS IS AT..? Philmont Christian. AND WHAT ERA OF U.S. HISTORY DO YOU HAVE TO KNOW TODAY? It actually goes from the creation of the Constitution to modern day so we learn about cases and amendments, that stuff. DO YOU TALK ABOUT ROE V. WADE IN AMERICAN HISTORY CLASS? Yeah that’s one of the cases. WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT DECISION? Which one is that, again? THE ROE V WADE RIGHT TO ABORTION DECISION? I’m definitely pro-life. I’m against abortion. A small percent of circumstances like rape and stuff like that obviously is really tough, a tough call but I think that even if someone isn’t born, the life is still important. HOW DO YOU BELIEVE THAT SHOULD BE REGULATED? It’s tough to say. I’m not sure, yeah, I’m not sure. Brett Steiger of Abington, Cedars Café, Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Watch video here.

April, 31years old, Ryerss Horse Farm Retiree

Gregory Marincola volunteers at Ryerss Farm, a “retirement” community for old and formerly abused horses, located on nearly 400 acres of land in Chester County. http://www.ryerss.com There, Marincola visits with the first horse of his wife, now deceased, a half Tennessee Walker, half Paint who was called to Ryerss from her place on the waiting list when she was 31 years old.

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I’d like to introduce you to my three horses that I have up here at Ryerss. I’ll show you a picture.  [Pointing to photos on wall] This is my wife, Andrea, who has passed away, and this is our horse, “April,” when she was a baby. She’s like two years old there. And to the right we have Vicki, who has passed away, and our little pony Mindy, who has also moved to the other side. And, again, this is April, a bit older now; she’s still living, she’s still with me. This is their wall of fame here at Ryerss and you can see it’s all the horses that are here now, who have been through here and passed on and some of their owners. This is open to the public. They can come in here and look at the horses and get an idea what’s going on….This is Arian’s April’s Dawn, my wife’s first horse and we got her when she was two years old. We kept her at home until she reached the age of  thirty-one. DID YOUR WIFE RIDE HER? Yeah… She’s strictly a pleasure horse and she’s half Tennessee Walker and a half Paint. We had put our horses on a waiting list here at Ryerss and a year after my wife passed away, I got the letter, it was time for them to come home. So this is where she lives now. Gregory Marincola, with April, at Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines, South Coventry Township, Chester County, Pa.

Watch video here

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

"Computer Lady" refurbishes computers for students

I’ve been retired now for about twelve years.  And ever since I’ve been retired I’ve wanted to do something. I’m not a lay home watch soap opera kind of girl.  I ran into a place called non-profit technology resources down near Spring Garden and Stan introduced me to recycling. And what I do is the donations that have come into the YWCA where I started and Malt Computer Volunteer Group, with the donations that come in, they were just sitting around. So I decided to tinker with and fix them.

As of the past four years we’re a Microsoft authorized refurbisher. We’re licensed by Microsoft to refurbish computers and install licensed products. Because we’re an authorized refurbisher, that means I’m obligated to wipe any and all hard drives. So I can assure people if they want to donate it or someone comes in and says I want to donate and I want my data, I’ll open the computer up and pull the hard drive out and hand it to them. Because when I re-image it, it has to be wiped. I have other hard drives.

You used to be able to put computers out on the sidewalk. Now you can’t do that. Also industries can’t dispose of their computer equipment the way they used to. So they donate it. They say you come get it. No you drop it off because I know they’re saving money (plus they’re getting a tax deduction} because they don’t have to pay for disposal.

My concern is since I’m a grandmom my concern is with schoolchildren, middle school through high school and college students. When I get donations of laptops, the college students are first on the list AT REDUCED PRICE? At minimal price. Especially a high school student who comes in and they’re honor roll. They get a whole PC for twenty bucks. AND HOW DO THEY FIND OUT ABOUT YOU? Usually word of mouth. Everybody knows “Miss Wynnie, the computer lady.” Wynne Hill, Summit Presbyterian Church, Mount Airy.

Watch video here.

Was near death, now teaches balance, Tai Chi and shenanigans

I am the only child or Roscoe and Virginia Pauline Warner… HOW DID YOU GET INTO PHYSICAL THERAPY? Football injury in high school. Then I went to Shepherd University played four years as starting center at Shepherd. So if I messed up, everybody knew it and the play was toast.  ARE YOU STILL ACTIVE ATHLETICALLY OR SPORTS-WISE? Keystone Senior Games. I did ten events. Shot-put, discus, hammer throw, foul shooting, badminton, tennis, swimming…. March first I will be seven decades. But I was getting all ready last summer and I just didn’t feel right. And in February my intestines blew. And so I went from playing tennis to emergency surgery. Eight days of induced coma. During the coma (I’m sure it was sometime there) I went, ‘God, are you sure you got the right guy?’ And he didn’t answer. And then he came back in and He says, ‘George, I will take you home some day but I got some things for you to do.’ ‘God, please tell me it’s a long list.’ During that time I felt no fear, anxiety and it’s true. I think they did shift work between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit- you know, around the clock. And the surgeons told my wife, ‘There’s no way he’s going to survive this’ because I had pneumonia, peritonitis …and it wasn’t to be my time. So since that time I teach a class once a week- balance, flexibility, isometrics, tai chi and shenanigans.  And I do it for free. CAN YOU SHOW US A SHENANIGAN?  Do you want my wife to really do me in? [To his wife] Young lady, do you know what a shenanigan is? George Warner of Hershey, PA spending New Year’s in Carlisle, PA.

Watch video interview 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.

 

 

 

Skyspace for new Friends Meeting in Chestnut Hill

 

This is a sky space in Pomona in California and I think these are houses maybe in Connecticut.  I’m not quite sure. But his work is all over the word now. But none on the East Coast is open year round to the public. There’s a sky space at the Modern Art Museum PS1 annex …There’s a Turrel there. And I didn’t understand all the fuss until I went and saw that. It’s astonishing. You take the freight elevator to the second floor of this old school building and the corridors painted bright enamel green. You walk down the corridor and there’s a little green door that says “Meeting by James Turrell” You open this little green door and inside is a white chamber filled with light.  And there are people sitting all around the perimeter on benches. And you know these kids in New York with their piercings and their blue hair. And you know they’re very hip artists. They’re silent looking up at this great opening to the sky. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SKY SPACE? Well it’s a hole in the roof. It’s an aperture that is so cunningly designed there’s no architectural feature. You can’t tell that it’s constructed. It is just a diamond in the sky, coming down… It’s a retractable roof so obviously when it’s raining, you got to cover it. It opens up and there’s no glass, it’s just open to the air. And you sit under this. I went in February when it was 21 degrees Fahrenheit so it was very cold. So we sat all huddled under our blankets looking at this. And during the day you just see the clouds going by like the geese or the contrails of the jet planes…It’s at sunset and sunrise that it has the most dramatic-it’s the change of color, the change of the light. Turrell has some very small lighting around the outside that is a contrasting color. So what happens is the color becomes more and more saturated…. It’s intensely blue so it’s in contrast with this color. It’s very gradual very slow, it takes maybe 45 minutes for the color to change and change and darken…

Jean Warrington, Clerk of the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting at the Chestnut Hill Library. See http://www.chfmnewmeetinghouse.org

Chef sculpts Ice New Year's Eve

I’m done with all the major cuts. It’s all the way through. Now it’s kind of add feature to the snowflake and know that I only have two feet that it’s standing on. This is going to be the tricky part to get all the detail in. We’ll finish the pedestal and we’ll call it a night. ARE YOU WORKING FROM A PATTERN? I am. All my templates I start with a paper pattern. That’s only one-dimensional. You get into the three-dimensional when you start cutting. HOW DID YOU GET INTO IT? I’m a chef by trade so this is part of my education.  You practice with every piece. Every one is very different. They all have their own kind of temperament, their own characteristics. WHAT’S THE TEMPERAMENT OF THIS ONE? This one is a little tougher, it is getting a little colder so it’s a little bit more of a fight than the “2012.” The “2012” cut like butter, it was a little earlier in the evening, this one’s a little tougher which is Okay.

Chef Tim Harris, First Night celebration, Carlisle, PA. [BYSTANDERS: What’s the best thing about ice cutting? Chainsaw!]

Watch video here.

A popular attraction at the 2012 First Night Carlilse celebration were the"Steppinwoofs" a group of ladies and their pet dogs who dance in choreographed routines: see video clip here.