Year Two: Reflections

I figure I’ll make this an April one tradition.

Dislocations has just completed its sophomore year. Thanks everybody for reading.

Again, I apologize for the lousy copy editing. It is sorely lacking but I’m a one man band here. Seeing the typos makes me cringe more than any body, which by way of apology is pretty thin soup but all that my ladle can serve.

I’ve been enduring some Apartment Hell which is one reason I’ve been a tad lacks in posts. A flood occurred in the apartment above mine, clean up and some renovation resulted. But I’m fine. I’m a bit of loner and the title of this blog reflects a kind of isolation. Ironically, writing this blog has eased some of the isolation, which is actually nice. I’ve met more people and actually made some friends while not directly due to the blog, the blog was factor. This has been an unexpected benefit. For some reason, it has happened more in the past year then the year before. Not sure why, but it has been a pleasing amount of fun. This blog has evolved, and continues to evolve.

I started Dislocation as bit of a lark and to promote a website of my literary work. That was a geocities deal when I started, but that endeavor folded. Last fall, I launched another website – Timhrklit – which you might also enjoy, which has a lot of the now unlost geocities fiction, memoir and poetry.

Part of the evolution has been the concentration on Jersey City I love Jersey City. I don’t really know exactly why. I can think of reasons, but I can also think of reasons that it ticks me off. Good lord, Jersey City can annoy (you know who I mean!). I have many friends in town. On the surface, we often have little or nothing in common, except a shared sense of and devotion to place, an appreciation and loyalty to the same city. Why the love for this grimy, DIY and corrupt ex-factory town where lagoons form around every corner when it rains? Why ask why. I just like it here, next!

Jersey City is quintessential New Jersey. I’m not talking any MTV show (I do not watch television) or even Bruce Springsteen, whom I am a fan of but he hasn’t written a N.J. song since the Carter Administration! The true essence of the Garden State – the Northern part – is found here, whatever that essence is – whatever that part of the American story is that started with the Dutch genocide of the Lenni Lenape inhabitants, was followed by being the bloody ground for many Revolutionary war battles (and became rebel bulwark against the Tory stronghold of Manhattan), then a stop along the Underground Railroad even though there were still slave holders in the state, and then whose Agrarian culture gradually became supplanted by the Industrial Revolution that economically empowered Ellis Island era immigrants and is now the present day setting for a confluence of trends: new immigrants, gentrification, de-industrialization and a the millennial generation coming into their own. Jersey City is not just Jersey undiluted; it’s a microcosm of America now.

I like to walk. I require solitude and reverie in order to maintain sanity. Walking city streets encourages contemplation. Evidence of my maintaining sanity has become a large part of this blog, they are the pictures taken during my strolls, either about what I see or a comment about the weather or what I hope is funny. I just seemed to have done more of that this year, random/observation/things. Make of that what you will In no order, these observations stand out in my memory (here here here here here here here here here here).

One of the best things in town to happen in 2010 was the start of the JC Film Forum, the local cineaste society that screens films on Sunday evenings at the JC Art School. This is not a very good blog, and I’ve written other blogs about it, which are likewise a tad lame. Going here prompted me to do some writing about film on Dislocations. The reason however, I list it in the annual round up is that for some reason, this blog gets the highest number of page views, according to the google stats! Go figure!

My new favorite blog is a recent one, about the freight train. I suspect we will see this hidden terrain here again in the upcoming year. The pictures and the writing are probably just average, but standing next to a moving train was pure exhilaration. I just like trains, and I’ve seen these beautiful iron horses transport our necessities on this line since I moved to town and always wanted to see it up close and until this winter morning never did.

Maybe best blog of the past year was about my old Buddy Darren who came to town with his marvelous children to take in a night at The Feast, the August celebration on 6th Street. I think a universalized event was observed with that one.

I also liked this one about visiting my mother. Autobiographical but it’s also about journey and sometimes the farthest distance between a point A and a point B is actually the closes in terms of actual miles.

This blog is about Max Fish. The lack of copy editing makes me want to weep, as does this personal story, but in a different way. This was my bar when I lived in the lower east side before embarking on JC residency. It’s about a lot of things, but it is also what it means to have a bar.

Remember the mosque that caused such a controversy? That was a rare dip into current events. I try to avoid politics, one can’t. I did like this paean to voting very much.

Writing music reviews is harder than I thought. I have a few that I started, on Johnny Cash, Hilary Kole, and the Louvin Brothers that I can’t seem to finish. I tend to go long on them. I thought that would be a big component of Dislocations. Funny, when I first conceived of this, the Jersey City aspect was meant to be a minor part. No one can predict these things. Luckily, there’s some good music to observe in town. Kelly Saint Patrick has an angelic face, versatile voice and knows her way around the guitar, played one of the better sets at the 2010 Groove on Grove series, her songs exhibited insight into the heart. The Nouvellas I caught by chance at the 4th Street Festival, this crew fronted by a female duo could lead their own neo-soul music revival. Totally awesome, I play their CD sometimes. My favorite local band remains Any Day Parade, even though they broke up. I play their two CDs a lot! Tree, their leader started a new band, the Morning Glorys and I caught a cooking set at the 58 Gallery, which turned out was both a farewell – Tree moved back to her Kentucky home, land of her birth – and a call to arms, civic pressure is building against performance spaces and this event made it clear sides have been drawn. I got a good blog, anyway.

Art. Like I keep repeating, I hate to repeat myself, which is one reason you do not see a blog on every opening at one of our cool but struggling galleries. Some artists I’m friends with, some I sort of follow. I am not interested in covering art, I just wonder what (and how) a piece is making me feel. I am also interested in seeing what sort of context in which I can place the art, and if it says something about our world. I think I was mostly successful towards reaching this objective with the Thomas Carlson’s Mural, and this show by Ken Bastards. I like both those dudes and they’re really talented, but I think those two blogs transcended all that.

I try to go to something different every Artist Tour and even every JC Friday, although the latter I’m not too successful at doing. This year for the former, I liked the peak into this couple’s work and life. A few months ago I liked this show at the gia studio -- Memory Maps -- a place that is new to me. Most of the galleries retail art and I have nothing against that, but this show was conceptual art and maybe artists in town might want to think about something beyond retail, something dealing with ideas and perceptions. Once in a while, might be interesting to see.

I remember this blog too, about Uta Brauser receving recognition at the 4th Street Art Festival. She deserves it very much. I’ve done a few blogs related to her going ons. Unfortunately, she closed her Jersey Ave Gallery, but it still doing the Creative Grove. She seems emblematic of the struggles between art and authority now taking place in our fair city. I always side with art (and artists natch)!

2011 also saw the farewell to Gold Coast Fitness. Here were some memories about a place that saved me from a life of slothful obesity.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Enough reflections! Hell, I'm too busy thinking of blogs to reflect on the blogs. Okay. I'm just busy with other crap. I'm only plugging anyway. I could name a few others. All in all, not a bad collection of internet writing, some of it anyway. On to April, on to the rest of the year, the rest of life! Thanks for reading! God Bless You All!