1952 Truck on Coles

1952. That’s what the guys told me in the garage, I think they were father and son. Surf Rock was being played, the younger guy had chosen the CD. It was classic Surf Rock, made more than a decade before this dude was born.

The rusty truck cab, was that going to be restored. Eventually they said, when the track down the other pieces of the truck.

A Quote About Youth

“...I’ve had reason to believe there’s something after this, but I’m in no rush to find out what it is. I love life. Not as much as I did as a kid, of course, but how can you after Christmas and Halloween start to lose their buzz, and booze tastes a little too familiar, as does death, and sex isn’t such a new experience either? You’d have to have been a pretty miserable kid to be happier as an adult, and that I wasn’t. I was a carefree little shit who searched for duck nests and caught frogs and sat up in my tree house in the summer thanking God for my youth. I always appreciated youth. I remember being eighteen and driving around Rhode Island with my girlfriend Grace and a few of the guys, drinking beer and listening to the radio, and I pulled the car over and looked at everyone and I said, “Do you realize how great this is? We’re young!” And I felt it. And I still ache from it.

From The Comedy Writer, a novel by Peter Farrelly

Just Now

Just a band, just a city park, just an afternoon. Just passing through the melody, just glancing at the merchandise on the flea market tables, just catching a piece of the conversation from the closest strangers. Just a moment, just a glimpse of everyone here, just in this city park, for the first and last time.

Pecking Disorder

Squabs squabbling. Poking and pecking for their piece of the bread slice. I love the way the heads bob, the beaks are aimed and the feathers flutter. But, after the food is gone, the fight ends, the pigeon’s endless hunger eliminates grudges.

Jim Harrison Quote

“I thought, “She does her thinking out loud,” about Marybelle, maybe a new development in our culture, just as twenty-five years ago when I quit teaching I could see the onslaught of the new culture where everything including education had to be fun or amusing.”

From The English Major by Jim Harrison

Shrine of Saint Jude at Saint Michael Church on 9th Street

The Shrine of Saint Jude at Saint Michael Church on 9th Street. Every Tuesday, there are masses at 12:00 PM and 7:15 PM, adoration of the Holy Eucharist throughout the day, and special Novena Prayers to St. Jude and Veneration of a Relic of Saint Jude are conducted after the masses. It is called the Perpetual Novena, which means ever-lasting, and has been going in Jersey City since at least 1930. The statue and the shrine were originally in Saint Lucy church, which is way over north of the Holland Tunnel Entrance by the Hoboken border. The church closed in 1986 (although there is a shelter and soup kitchen that is operated by the Parish still under the Saint Lucy name, and the perpetual novena was moved to its present home near Hamilton Park.

What is a Novena? In Latin, the word means nine, and scholars differ as to why this number has mystical significance—some say it is the number of months Jesus spent in Mary’s womb, others say it’s the number of hours Christ prayed in Gethsemane the night before he was executed. Ancient Jewish Philosophers as well as Vatican Theologians and other religious Scholars uphold the sacredness of the number nine. The tradition is to pray special prayers (or do other religious acts, like receive communion) nine consecutive times. It is usually days, but can be weeks or any other designation.

Saint Jude, was one of the 12 apostles, died a martyr death, and wrote an epistle—the second to last book of the New Testament. He is called Jude Thaddeus, was a cousin of Jesus. He has exactly one line in the Gospels, at the last supper, where he is referred to as Judas (not Iscariot).

He is called the Patron Saint of Lost Causes & Desperate Situations, and believers pray to him as kind of the Saint of last resort. Actually, they don’t pray to him but pray for his “intercession,” which is a real Catholic concept that is dismissed by other denominations of Christians (not to mention Jews and Muslims when it comes to the practices of prayer).

In 1548, Pope Paul III, granted a plenary indulgence to all who visited St. Jude’s Tomb in the Vatican. According to some scholars, this edict indicates that a thriving devotion to St. Jude most likely existed for centuries before then. Records show that in 1153, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, requested that a relic of St. Jude be placed on his chest and buried with him. The Tuesday night devotion to St. Jude is not only more than half a century old in Jersey City, but it is a tradition more than 500 years old.

Devotions to Jude crosses all Catholic nationalities. There are shrines and churches dedicated to Saint Jude in nearly every country in the world, including Italy, India, the Philippines and throughout Latin America. In thousand of churches, millions of Catholics every week pray for intercession from Saint Jude. He’s not “owned” by one ethnic group or culture, which is really uncommon. Devotions for most Catholic icons—for example Our Lady of Guadalupe (Hispanics), Saint Rocco (Italian) and Saint Patrick (Irish)—are mainly popular with specific nationalities. Saint Jude attracts devotions throughout the world, and by all accounts, these devotions rose up from the parishinors, they were not mandated by Clerical Authorities.

The Feast Day of Saint Jude is October 28th. On Monday (10/20), was the first day of the annual Novena to Saint Jude, culminating in the feast day Mass on October 18th. It’s a tradition in Jersey City, has been going on since at least the Great Depression (and probably in a less organized fashion for years before then).

Z’s by the Sea

Brice, Eric & Mia are Canadian artists and part of the “Art in Odd Places,” 14th Street Art Festival that is running through October. Their project was about dreaming, “increasing the awareness of dreams, and encouraging dreams in public places,” Eric told me. “Z’s by the sea” – or in Canadian, “Zeds by the Sea,” was the name of their project. They were giving out sleep masks in support of public napping—and dreaming. Participants decorate their own mask using wooden printer blocks—housed in a pretty nifty looking dream-like tower. Participants put on the mask and Brice photographed them, napping. I ran into them in Union Square park on a sunny afternoon last week. I loved the printer blocks. Print Making—it’s even older than analog. I wonder, since Union Square is pretty far from the sea, even the river, I wonder if the sea for the Z’s is part of the dream too. Actually, the exact title was "ZS By The C: A Radical Crafting and Public Napping Project." But it sounded more like by the sea. I salute their attempt to redefine the day dream. I love dreams, and I love naps, but I was meeting somebody so I only had time for a blog.