Amalía Fashionista – the Easter Parade

Granddaughter Amalía, the self-appointed fashion guru to the pre-potty-trained set, just as Suri Cruise is to the pre-school set, knew that she would have to pull out all the fashion stops during this past Easter season, especially since she celebrated two Easters in two different cities.

(Speaking of Suri Cruise, let us pause to wish her a happy sixth birthday today and say that we’re frantic to find out how the Cruises are celebrating—especially since they spent over $100,000 on Suri’s second birthday bash, threw a lavish tea party in their Beverly Hills mansion last year for her fifth, and this year have arrived in Manhattan by helicopter to prepare for today’s festivities.  The whole fashion world is in a frenzy of anticipation to learn how Suri, who already wears high heels, celebrates and what she wears.)

Back to Amalía, who is now seven and a half MONTHS old.  She celebrated her first (Catholic) Easter on April 8 in Manhattan with her Mommy, Papi and Abuelita Carmen, who had come all the way from Nicaragua bearing the lovely hand-smocked pink dress (above) with blue embroidery and a matching pink straw hat.  (Amalía did put on shoes and socks for church.)  After church and lunch at Fulton resturant on the upper East Side, Amalia and her entourage joined the Easter Parade in front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and had their photos taken at Rockefeller Center against a background of giant flowered eggs and topiary bunnies.

 And in a moment of pre-Easter silliness, Amalia donned bunny ears and showed off her first two teeth.

 Then Amalia and her parents and Abuela drove to Yiayia and Papou’s house in Grafton MA in time for the many rituals celebrating Orthodox Easter, which this year was on April 15.

Holy Saturday begins, for the Orthodox, with Communion after seven weeks of fasting (or at least one week of fasting for the less observant.)  The early morning Communion service at St. Spridon Cathedral in Worcester is followed by a rush to the Pancake House to indulge in the eggs and dairy that had been forbidden for so long.  Only meat is still verboten until the midnight Resurrection service. Of course Amalía didn’t fast or take communion, because she hasn’t yet been baptised.

 For Holy Saturday services, Amalia chose to wear this classic white dress with black trim accessorized with a white cardigan and a cloche hat, both in white with lavender trim

For casual wear she rocked this kimono-style onesie decorated with anime-style mermaids.

 Or this little pink frock for a trip to the park with Abuelita Carmen,

 A highlight of Easter breakfast is the sweet braided Tsoureki bread with a red egg on top.  It was Amalía’s introduction to this Easter tradition, and it became a favorite of hers at first taste.

 On Orthodox Easter Sunday, Amalía chose to make an entrance in this flowery dress with a yellow straw hat. She sat at the head of a table of 10, laden with roasted lamb, moussaka,  spinach- and cheese pies and even lobster-filled crepes  But she fell asleep before the  dessert course.

 In retrospect, Amalía decided that the only fashion faux pas she committed was this dress which she wore  while counting the eggs in her Easter Basket.   She made a mental note:  horizontal stripes are not her best fashion choice because  she’s short and they tend to make her look fat.

 On the next day, Monday April 16, Amalía headed back to New York City, mentally regretting that she’d left most of her summer sundresses hanging in the closet of their South Beach apartment in Miami.  How was she going to deal with all the social obligations that lie ahead during this freakishly warm New York weather?

 Back in New York

(For a further report on Amalía’s cross-cultural Pascal experiences, see her mommy’s blog post “Amalía has two Easters.”)

Found Art: The Diners of Worcester

The city of Worcester (where I live) takes great pride in the city’s architectural landmarks and its contributions to modern civilization. Worcester boasts a number of “famous firsts”, including barbed wire, shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the first commercial Valentines, the birth control pill, the first perfect game in major league baseball and the yellow Smiley Face icon.

 We have Coney Island Hotdogs with its famous neon sign, and the Boulevard Diner where Madonna ate spaghetti after a concert at the Centrum.  We have Table Talk Pies and Sir Morgan’s Cove (now Lucky Dog) where the Rolling Stones in 1981 gave an impromptu free concert. We have Mechanics Hall, where Henry Thoreau, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt,  Susan B. Anthony and Hillary Clinton have  orated and Auburn Park, where Robert Goddard sent the first liquid fuel rocket into space.

Worcester takes special pride in the  diners that  can still be found throughout New England and as far as Florida, because most of them were originally built  by the Worcester Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company which produced over 600 diners between 1906 and 1957.  The Miss Worcester Diner still stands in its original location across the street from the former factory.

Every year the Family Health Center of Worcester asks artists to donate examples of their work to the Art in the City Auction.  This year’s auction will take place on Friday, May 4, 2012 at Worcester’s famous Mechanics Hall.

I like to donate paintings or photographs to Art in the City every year, because the  Family Health Center provides health services to over 33,000 patients from greater Worcester, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

Last year I donated four matted and framed photographs of Worcester landmarks which I had originally taken for an exhibit called “Welcome to Worcester” in  2010.  The show was put together by Elizabeth Hughes of the Futon Company on Highland Street. The photographs I donated last year featured the Owl Shop, the famous sign of Coney Island Hot Dogs, and photographs of the Miss Worcester Diner and the Boulevard Diner.  All the photos sold, and the diner photos were especially popular, so this year I’m donating  embellished digital photos of Ralph’s Diner (where the owner, Ralph Moberly’s ashes are buried beneath a tombstone in front) and a different shot of the Boulevard Diner at night.  I also contributed a photo of the Owl Shop’s neon sign against the bell tower of City Hall, and the clock tower of the Worcester State Hospital, long condemned and in danger  of being torn down until it was decided to replace it with a copy of the original building.

If the photos continue to prove popular with the public, I hope to photograph a half dozen more of the classic dining cars that still survive in Worcester and its environs, because the lovingly maintained, art deco details of these neighborhood restaurants, both inside and outside, are certainly found art.

Worst-Taste Christmas Decoration Ever?

The first time I drove by the decorations on the roof of this house in Shrewsbury, MA, I thought--"Nahh!  That's not what I thought it is."  The next time I drove by, I took a good look and realized it WAS!  Santa peeing a lighted stream across the roof into a puddle of lights.

I went back in the daytime to make sure--but without the lights, I'll bet no one noticed anything odd about this Santa standing next to a chimney.

I just read last week that a homeowner in nearby Westborough MA., who got carried away with filling his front yard with lights, was receiving warning letters from an anonymous neighbor who threatened to tear down the display if he didn't winnow it out to make it more "tasteful."  But at least the guy in Westborough didn't have Santa peeing on his front lawn!

Meanwhile, daughter Eleni, who's spending Christmas with her husband Emilio in his native Nicaragua, says that touring the  Christmas displays in Managua means going from one creche scene to another.  She's got photos of the Nacimientos on her latest blog post "Away, In A Manger."  Every home has a Nativity scene, I gather, and in public spaces the figures are life-sized.  But the Christ Child, which is the centerpiece of the scene, cannot be placed in the manger until Christmas day, when he is born.  Before he's placed in the manger, the children touch the Christ Child for a blessing.

Here in Worcester, MA and its suburbs, there are a lot of giant inflatable Santas and Snowmen in front yards, but there is nary a Christ Child or manger scene around.  I think I read that it is now illegal to have a representation of the Nativity in a public place.

But I'll bet there are no laws on the books in Massachusetts against having a peeing Santa on your roof.

Mezcal & My Favorite Mexican Photos

 Back in 2008, when Michael Covino and the Niche Hospitality Group opened Mezcal Restaurant on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, Mike commissioned me to  print, mat and frame nearly 40 photos of the Mezcal-making process—photos I took on a trip to Oaxaca.

In the town of Mitla  I photographed many family-owned Mezcal “fabricas”. Mezcal is made from the heart of the Agave cactus–called a piña because of its resemblance to a pineapple. I got great photos, all related to the Mezcal-making process, but I convinced Mike to let me frame as well some non-Mezcal portraits of people I had encountered in Mexico.  He hung six of my portraits of women in the ladies’ room and six hombres in the men’s.  These “bathroom” portraits proved to be so popular that people kept stealing them, which I took as a compliment.

Mezcal Restaurant in Worcester turned out to be a huge success.  It was voted best Mexican Restaurant in the city. Every time I drove by, I saw people waiting to get in.

Last spring Mike asked me to print out a new set of photos for a new Mezcal Restaurant that the Niche group was opening in Leominster, MA.  It’s just now officially open, and my favorite portraits of Mexican men and women are again in the restrooms.  I hope they don’t get stolen!  But if they do, I’ll just re-print them and take it as a compliment.  Here’s the story behind the dozen photos:

1. Guelaguetza Girls. These lovely young women were practicing for the ceremony called Guelaguetza that takes place in Oaxaca during late July.  Originally meant to worship the corn god, it was celebrated by the indigenous people long before the Spanish came.  The trajes (costumes) these women are wearing and their lace headpieces are so stunning! No wonder Frieda Kahlo adopted the fashion for herself.

2. Fiesta tot. This adorable child was photographed some years ago at a Candelaria Festival on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.  The Zapotec Indians of the Isthmus have their own language and traditions, and it’s a strong matriarchal society—the women rule.

3. At the Candelaria Festival, most of the dancers were women dancing with each other. (The men mainly watched from the sidelines)  But this young couple was the focus of all eyes, because they were so beautiful and so clearly in love.  I hope by now they’re married and bringing their own fiesta tots to the Candelaria festival.

4. The Tortilla Lady.  She’s cooking (with helpers) in her courtyard in preparation for the Candelaria feast.  She is one of the many local cooks I was introduced to by Susana Trilling in the course of one of Susana’s culinary tours.  Those tours are always full of adventure and  take you far, far off the beaten track, because Susana knows the culinary secrets of Mexico better than anyone.  Info about  her tours is at www.SeasonsOfMyHeart.com.

5. Candelaria Parade.  These beauties were tossing favors, just as people do in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Candelaria happens on Feb. 2 (same as Groundhog Day).  Because it’s 40 days after Christmas, it marks the day when the Virgin Mary took Jesus to be presented at the temple.  In Mexico, every family buys a new outfit for the Christ Child doll on the family’s home altar and takes him to church to be blessed.

6. You’ve seen this urchin on my blog before--cheerfully carrying her little brother on her back.  When I was walking around San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico in 2009, also on one of Susana’s culinary tours (this one was “Chiapas & Chocolate & Tabasco”), I encountered this girl and lots of her friends, all selling cheap jewelry. The first day I ran into her, she was unencumbered by her sibling, but she was always smiling. Of course I bought some of her bracelets.

7. This blind musician was also someone I encountered on the streets of San Cristobal.  It’s a wrenching portrait.  For some reason, almost all the photos I’ve taken of old men in Mexico bring tears to my eyes.  I think because they make me think of my father, who died about 25 years ago.

8. This old man, holding his bottle of beer and staring thoughtfully into space, was at a Day of the Dead celebration, which is usually a rollicking event in this village outside of Oaxaca, with bands playing and people dancing.  But I suspect he’s pensive because he’s remembering friends who have passed away.

9. This man who entered the church in Tlacalula, immediately knelt down and continued to pray for a long time.  I suspect he’d come a long way on this pilgrimage.

10.  The Red Devil.  He’s one of many devils that delighted in harassing us at Carnival time in the village of San Martine Telcajete.  I was there while taking a class in collage, shadow box & photography with photographer Mari Seder.  Every year the class visits the Carnival celebrations in this small town, which include a hilarious mock wedding featuring trans-dressers and much mischief. (See more about Mari’s  classes at www.artworkshopsinoaxaca.com. )

11. This photograph was taken at the ancient ruins of El Tajin on another one of Susana’s culinary tours—“Veracruz & Vanilla”. At the Spring Equinox, the indigenous people come to the ruined pyramids of El Tajin, everyone dressed in white, to absorb the power of the sun god and to  have  a cuerandero (healer)  perform a cleansing ceremony.  At night there were native dancers and children handing out clay images of the gods and the next day everyone came back to see the Vanilla Queen, the Voladores (flying dancers) with their dangerous rituals, and of course, to be cleansed.

12. The young man above is happy because he’s off to the Candelaria parade which is followed by the fiesta.  As I recall, the price of admission was a case of beer.  The Mexicans of the state of Oaxaca, like the  customers at the old and new Mezcal Restaurants, know how to have a good time.

Red Eggs for Easter

Yesterday was Good Friday and once again we trooped off to pick up our slaughtered Easter Lamb from Bahnan's Market on Pleasant Street in Worcester, where they celebrate Easter every year in four languages.  Once again, I got queasy in the ice-cold room where the lambs were hanging and had to escape to the fresh air outside.

Today, early,  we rushed off to church without a bite of food, eager to end our fast with communion.  Then we made our annual pilgrimage to the Pancake House where we wallowed in treats forbidden during the past weeks of Lent (but no meat--yet!).  Now we're dressing for the late-night Easter service which culminates with the church in complete darkness until, at the stroke of midnight, Father Dean announces "Christ is risen" and the light from his candle spreads throughout our congregation and then through the city and through all the world as we make our way home, protecting the flame, and begin to eat  mayeritsa soup and crack our red eggs in competition to see whose is strongest, repeating each time,  the great good news:  "Christ is risen!"  "He is risen indeed!

(If you would like to read a delightfully humorous, lyrical and personal description of the rituals of Orthodox Holy Week as written by daughter Eleni, click on her latest post on her new blog "The Liminal Stage, below." ) 

http://www.theliminalstage.com/?p=321

Below is the saga of our Greek Easter as I reported it last year in a post called "Easter in Four Languages."   The story this year was pretty much the same.  That's one of the great things about ritual, tradition and holidays.

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them)

Today is Good Friday and in a Greek household that means we can’t eat dairy or meat (that’s been going on for 40 days) and also today we can’t eat oil, so on Good Fridays we usually end up surviving on things like plain baked potatoes and peanut butter on crackers.

But today the Big Eleni, who lives with us and is the best cook in the world, has all sorts of “fasting” Good Friday food ready – Halvah, stuffed grape leaves, rice-stuffed tomatoes, taramasalata (made from fish roe) and some sort of artichoke/spinach/ hummus concoction. And boiled shrimp.

Today was also the annual dramatic journey into Worcester to collect the lamb which we had ordered far ahead from Bahnan’s Market on 344 Pleasant Street. As you can see from the first sign above, the people at Bahnan’s are ready to sell you your Easter needs in four languages: English, Greek, Turkish and Arabic.

(And they now have a café where, according to local Greeks, you can get the only authentic gyros for miles around.)

Shopping at Bahnan’s is like a visit to the United Nations, but on Easter week it’s like several festivals rolled into one.

There was a considerable line of people waiting to get into the refrigerated back room to receive the lamb they had ordered and have it cut up to their specifications. And this was in the morning, before church let out. I imagine by afternoon the line was out the door.

I didn’t last long in the refrigerated room, because of the cold and the proximity of all those lamb corpses, some of which looked the size of a small horse. (Our lamb was very small—I believe 27 pounds.)

I had to escape before the butcher started sawing, I couldn't take it, but this process is still easier than some early Easters in Nick’s Northern Greek village when the adorable baby goats were tied to each house’s front door knob and my offspring loved petting them. Then I had to drag the children, (all three under ten) out of town on Holy Saturday to prevent them seeing the general bloodshed as the baby goats were slaughtered and the blood ran in the street.

In the village on Easter Sunday you see spits outside every house, each one tended by the patriarch who is drinking homemade moonshine called Raki and having a good time. We sometimes do the lamb on the spit outside in Grafton, but not when Easter comes this early.

(By the way, this is a rare year when Orthodox Easter and everyone else’s Easter are on the same day. Usually we Greeks are later because Orthodox Easter has to be after Passover. It’s complicated.)

In the photos above you see the Big Eleni shopping for Greek cheese at Bahnan’s. We already have our large round Tsoureki bread with the red egg in the middle. And on Holy Thursday, as always, we dyed dozens of eggs red for the Saturday-night egg-cracking duel when you challenge everyone – saying “Christ is risen” “Indeed he is risen”. Crack! And whoever’s egg comes out the winner gets the other guy’s egg.

Tomorrow—Holy Saturday—we will all go to church very early and without consuming as much as a drop of water beforehand. We line up to take communion and then are free for the first time in seven weeks to eat dairy (not meat. Not yet. But we are free to rush to the Pancake House where we traditionally stuff ourselves with high-calorie breakfast treats that have been forbidden for weeks.)

Then it’s back to church again at midnight.—for the dramatic Midnight Mass on Saturday night when the church is plunged into darkness and the priest comes out at the exact stroke of midnight with a single candle and announces ‘Christ is risen!” Then the flame passes from his candle to everyone else’s and the church fills with light as we sing the Resurrection hymn: “Christos anesti!” We try to keep our candles lit as we drive home to break the Lenten fast by cracking eggs and eating the delicate dill-and-egg-lemon soup made by the Big Eleni out of the lambs intestines.

(Actually, she doesn’t put in the intestines because she knows that our kids would never eat it. In fact one is a vegetarian. And after my visit to the market today, I understand perfectly.)

I hope wherever you are celebrating Easter or Passover -- in any language – you are enjoying warm spring weather. Here in Massachusetts it has finally stopped raining and will be a beautiful weekend. Kalo Pascha!

Street Art – Worcester’s Got It!

(Please click on the photos to make them bigger.)

Today’s Worcester Telegram and Gazette shouted in a front page spread that 40,000 art lovers flocked to StART on the Street yesterday to view and buy the art and crafts of about 250 local artists.

Maybe 40,000 is a wee exaggeration, but seeing the event, which took up several blocks of Park Avenue, filled me with pride in Worcester. I realized that there is a burgeoning community of talented artists in these parts, some of whom came from outlying communities to sell their creations. I am constantly amazed at the power of the creative urge (especially in older folks, like my fellow crones) that inspires people to spend their weekends and spare hours creating art out of an incredible variety of materials.


Yesterday I saw artists working with media ranging from painting, sewing, knitting, glass blowing, mosaic, iron welding, and furniture building, to feathers, gourds, dolls --even forks. (Matthew Bartik, whose business is aptly named “Fork Art” was so busy selling sculptures he has created by bending forks that you had to wait in line to get up to his table to pay him.)


A new wrinkle in this year’s StART on the Street was having artists demonstrate their craft. For instance there were three blacksmiths—one of them a woman-- another woman spinning yarn on a spinning wheel, and a huge “community quilt” of designs chalked on the street surface by anyone who wanted to create a square.


There were scads of small children (and small dogs in odd costumes). It was interesting to see the children transfixed as they interacted with a knight in shining armor, fencers fencing, craftsmen demonstrating how to carve and saw wood, even a lady covered in bronze paint and sitting on a ladder looking as still as a statue—these real-live artists were more interesting to the youngsters then anything they might see on television because they could hold the knight’s sword or saw on a log with the wood cutter, collect the wood chips and draw on the pavement with chalk. They were being entertained by the dancers and musicians and the man with the shell game and they were learning something about arts and crafts at the same time.


I saw a lot of paintings and prints and photographs I liked, and bought a few cards of Worcester photos from Dick Taylor. I also bought a little brown fabric doll with dreadlocks who is sitting in a rocking chair holding a miniature teacup. For gifts I purchased a couple pieces of “fork art” and a lacey wooden bowl crafted by Al Wheeler from solid oak using a scroll saw.


The food and drink booths had block-long lines and kept running out. All the artists I spoke to were thrilled with the business they were doing. It was a perfect day—not too cold and mostly not too hot. As I left StART on the Street, I walked through Elm Park, the oldest piece of land in the United States set aside for a public park in 1854. It has been full of outdoor art for two months, including a “fountain” made of empty plastic bottles gushing from a tree into the lake. (This year I noticed a lot of art is being made from recycled plastics—everyone’s thinking “green.”)


On the way to my car I took a photo of my favorite three-deckers—Worcester’s trademark architectural form, originally designed to house the families of the immigrant factory workers who crowded the streets at the turn of the last century, when Worcester was a thriving industrial center.


Today the city is much less crowded and many of the public buildings are empty, but on a day like yesterday, it was clear that, when it comes to encouraging arts and crafts, Worcester is worthy of its (usually) ironic nickname, “The Paris of the Eighties.”