Sunday in Teaneck

Earlier this afternoon, I was in the back row of The Puffin Cultural Forum, a non-profit performance space in Teaneck, NJ, listening to pianist Karine Poghosyan perform the nearly 40 minutes of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 (the one beginning da-da-da-DUM, arranged for solo piano by Liszt).

A few rows in front of me sat a man wearing a baseball cap with the plastic store tag still attached. It looped over his head like a small halo, bouncing to the music. The minor saint and I were both enjoying one hell of a performance, played with much spirit and without sheet music by Ms. Poghosyan, who has performed often in the New York area, as well as in her native Armenia.

It was just another Sunday in my native New Jersey -- which, to me, has always offered these various and beautiful moments.

At intermission, I took photos in the sculpture garden outside the main entrance. Here's a few I liked, starting with "Victim of War," by an unknown artist.

Here's "Roots of Empathy" by Nitza Danieli Horner.

And here's the Warrior of Cadmus, a large sculpture that dominates the garden, with the setting sun glinting off his mighty blade.

 

This was my favorite: "Distress" by David Adler. From behind, as photographed here, it looks like an angel. From the front it looks very different, but just as majestic.

How so, and why is it called "Distress"? Visit the sculpture garden of The Puffin Foundation and see for yourself. Follow the link for directions and additional information. The organization hosts various cultural programs, such as its "Classical Sunday" series. 

Explore New Jersey. I promise you, it will surprise you. Today, I took a small detour on my way home and discovered a tiny corner of the state filled with saints and angels and inspiring music. Not bad for an ordinary Sunday.

May Day in New Milford

The Marys of New Milford... in honor of #MayDay. • • • #myhometown #jerseycollective #njspots #just_newjersey #suburbia #nj #njshooterz #njisntboring #mary #statue #devotion

A post shared by Bob Varettoni (@bvarnj) on May 1, 2017 at 7:43am PDT

The Quantum Physics of Eternal Beauty

Since everything on the internet is deathless, I'd like to share this photo of Mom.

In the mid 1950s she was known around Passaic, N.J., as “the girl in the photo shop window.”

For several years, a photographer had displayed a large portrait of her -- a print from his series of her engagement photos -- in the front window of his shop on Main Avenue.

As a result, Mom was a local celebrity: the Belle of Passaic. People would stop her on the street, or call out from a passing commuter jitney bus, or tap the glass while she was at her job decorating the storefront displays at Kresge’s – and ask if she was the girl in the photo shop window.

My Dad, her betrothed Navy officer, kept a 5x7 version -- the same print Mom keeps in an oval gold frame by her bedside today -- in his bunk aboard the U.S.S. Midway as it toured the Pacific. He even entered it into a Miss Midway contest, where Mom took second place. We reminded her of this every time our family played Monopoly and someone picked a yellow “You have won second prize in a beauty contest – Collect $10” card from Community Chest.

Fast forward to 2017, with Dad having died a dozen years ago.

At dinner last Sunday with the extended family, Mom told the story of visiting Dad's grave that morning and finding a scrap of garbage there. It was a box top from a line of hair-care products called "Forever Beautiful."

With a tear in her eye, she carefully pulled the torn cardboard from her wallet. None of us around the table understood what she meant. She explained that she thought it was a message from Dad calling her "forever beautiful" from beyond the grave.

I felt a little sad no one had picked up on this. Mom has always been beautiful -- and I know Dad would have told her so that day, if he could.

And then, the very next day, he did.

He did so through my youngest daughter -- who was always so close to him that they evidently developed a quantum entanglement. Their energy states are one, no matter how far apart they are. Even death does not separate them, and what happens to one can influence the other. It's the nature of love.

My daughter had spent the weekend decorating her small New York City apartment. While she was at work that Monday, my wife stopped by to pick up a ladder we had lent her for the chore. My wife texted me a photo of the finished project: My daughter had hung family photos over a faux fireplace, and in the place of honor was the portrait of the girl in the photo shop window.

I believe that photos, like words on a page, are all part of a grand experiment in quantum physics. It's why I love photography and why I love writing. It's impossible to predict with certainty the impact of anything we create and place out into the world.

In the case of my mother, the existence of this photo still influences our world after more than 60 years.

In a small apartment in New York City there's incontrovertible evidence, to this very day, that Mom is forever beautiful.

A Visit to Citi Field

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How Fantasy Baseball Forms Real Friendship

That's Pete Sgro in the middle, 2014

Whenever baseball season begins, I think of Roger Angell’s famous observation about the game:

With time measured in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly, keep the rally alive, and the game never ends. You remain forever young.

I’ve also lately had a related thought:

If the most magical part of baseball is the way it suspends time, isn’t that also, precisely, the most magical part of friendship?

The two are connected in my own life – the timelessness of baseball and of friendship – in a very real way this week, as I prepare for the 32nd season of the Eastern Shuttle League, the Oldest Established Permanent Floating Fantasy Baseball League in the East.

The ESL was founded in 1985 by five recent college graduates from the New York area and five from New England (hence the league name, which refers to the now-defunct Eastern Shuttle airline route between New York and Boston). It was based on rules established in a 1984 book called “Rotisserie League Baseball” by Glen Waggoner, a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine.

We were all baseball fans, of course – but other than that, we really had little in common. My work friend and soon-to-be best man, Joe, new at the NY Archdiocese’s communications office, knew two guys from Syracuse University. We strong-armed another baseball fan who worked with us, he had a friend, that guy knew another guy…

At Larry's house, 2018

The next thing you know, 10 of us were sitting around the back room of a now-closed dive bar called “La Hacienda” in Cambridge. We were surrounded – in the pre-web, pre-wifi era -- by plenty of cold beer, pizza and pages of handwritten notes, pre-season articles ripped from local sports pages and copies of Glen’s book and The Bible (the “1985 Sporting News Official Baseball Register”).

We spent the next few hours in raucous laughter, hurling insults at each other as we bid up to $260 to fill our 23-player slots of American Leaguers during a makeshift auction process. We argued baseball, made fun of each other’s draft selections, scared the hell out of the few women in the bar and grossly over-tipped the wait-staff.

We’ve never looked back.

• We stopped playing for money before the end of the first season (which I WON, by the way, so somebody owes me big-time, considering the compound interest);
• we’ve clung to team names that seemed oh-so-clever in the late ‘80s but are now just juvenile double-entendres (although I’ve long been the Bob Alous, which STILL seems clever to me);
• we use the original rules and draft only American Leaguers (although I’ve only watched Mets games for the past few years – after all, as Angell also once wrote, "There is more Met than Yankee in every one of us" -- and now know practically none of the AL players, which is why I’ve never won since).

Notice how I dropped myself into every one of those statements? That’s pretty much an indication of how competitive the league has always been. I imagine it’s like growing up with a bunch of brothers, where you always have to be prepared to defend yourself.

I didn’t have any brothers growing up. Because of fantasy baseball, I’ve got some now.

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And, like brothers, we’re often pretty silly together.

One guy has long adopted Eddie Gaedel as his imaginary team’s manager. Eddie, the shortest player in MLB history, was hired by St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck to pitch hit during a meaningless doubleheader in 1951. He walked on four pitches. His jersey, bearing the uniform number " 1⁄8," is displayed in the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. You could look it up.

The ESL fantasy team owner, Ken G., is a talented writer with a whimsical flair. Over the years his detailed emails about his team, the KG Bees, written in Eddie’s voice, have come to rival anything Ring Lardner had ever written.

Eddie has become the ESL’s heart and soul: a foul-mouthed, wise-cracking midget with a Brooklyn accent, who provides weekly commentary on the fortunes of the Bees. Here’s a random sample from 2015:

The Bees front office exploded over the weekend with a testy, testosteroney "he said, wee said" battle of wills as the team's diabetic GM and dead midget manager lambasted one another for a dream thwee-peat season dashed to ruins. Giovanelli lambasted his pipsqueakity pilot for abandoning the club during the first six weeks of the season on a "selfish hellbent quest for Everest glory." He added, "And you had to go kick that freaking wolverine! It was all shit karma from that night on, yeti pelt be damned!!" Manager Eddie Gaedel in turn"wambastid" Mr. G over the team's humiliating fall from ESL dominance, blaming their ills on the GM's "wackwusta dwaft and keeping bweeping Jakobity!!" The two nearly came to bwows, until stalwart team members Brandon Moss and Mike Zunino (hitting a combined manly .199 on the season) separated the star-cwossed duo.

I know, it’s all a bit hard to explain. There was something about Eddie going to Napal and winning the Nobel Peace Prize that preceded this particular rant. And “Jakobity” is the expensively-priced (in ESL and IRL), under-performing Yankee, Jacoby Ellsbury. But you get the idea.

Scratching my head at the 2010 draft in Cooperstown

Not to be outdone by Ken, Joe often provides a hilarious preseason analysis of his team – the Joe Mammas -- in the voice of Casey Stengel, circa 1963.

Another team owner, Rich, once penned a song, “Don’t Worry, Be Lindy,” to the tune of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Don’t be fooled by any of this silliness, though. The free-spirited subject of the song, Lindy, has had a long and successful business career… just like one of the league’s other driving forces, the perpetually wise-cracking Roland (who fittingly displays a photo of Dr. Evil for his Facebook profile).

But now I’m naming names and getting too specific. If he ever reads this, Roland will probably kill me – and I’m not entirely sure that would be a first for him. I should stick with mentioning a few more general images:

There we are, all together at the end of the 1988 season at a sports bar in Manhattan, gathered around a big screen to watch Kirk Gibson take Dennis Eckersley deep in Game 1 of the World Series. There’s my baby girl, strapped into her carrier and propped next to me on the table the last time we held a draft at “La Hac.” There I am at my desk on 9/11/01, in an office building overlooking the World Trade Center – and the first email I received from anyone concerned about my safety… was from Roland.

There have been numerous births in the league since my daughter was born. Surprisingly few relationship breakups. Lots of job changes and relocations. Original ESL members have left and been replaced for so long that their replacements seem like original members. Cancer scares. Two deaths – one who overdosed from drugs after leaving the league many years ago; one last year, everyone’s dear friend Pete.

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Pete Sgro (I mention his full name here because no one is truly gone until their name is no longer mentioned) was a lifelong Yankees fan and top executive at A&E Networks. We always had to make sure the April draft didn’t conflict with his travels to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Vegas, or opening day at Yankee Stadium.

When he died suddenly last summer, we didn’t know whether we’d keep the league active.

But then, within just a few days, it seemed even sillier to close down the league because of Pete. We’ve arranged for someone to take up the management of his team, and the players he had aggressively traded for who he was sure would have breakout seasons in 2017. For Pete’s sake (yes, Dennis already used that Dad-joke-of-a-phrase in a recent email to Larry and Bruce), we still make fun of his team just as much as when he was alive.

Pete would have liked that. Just as he would have liked knowing that Joe smuggled in a miniature plastic figure of Eddie Gaedel to his memorial service.

A group of us attended that service, not sure Pete’s family members would even know who we were. Yet when we introduced ourselves to his wife, daughter and sister, we were received as family. “It’s so good to see his friends from the ESL,” they said. “We’ve heard so much about you over the years.”

Such is the awesome power of shared experience, no matter what the circumstance.

So, do yourself a favor this year. Join a fantasy baseball league.

The baseball season will take on another life for you, in another dimension. No matter how bad your home team is, you’ve got your fantasy team, and all you have to do is succeed utterly, stay competitive, and the games never end.

You remain forever young.

#weneedfewerkardashianwannabes

I posted this video on social because I thought it thought-provoking that when kids were asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” they said athlete, actor or model. Many see these as their only paths out of tough economic circumstances.

The #weneedmore program shines a light on the limited access to tech and educational resources available to too many students across the country. Millions of science and tech jobs could lead to a brighter future.

And then the first comment I saw was: "Yeah forget what makes you happy. Get that high paying job your parents and teachers want you to have and be miserable for the entirety of your f*ing life."

Am I missing the point?

It is, after all, a program sponsored by my employer. Perhaps Verizon should have named it #weneedfewerkardashianwannabes -- although, yes, the Kardashians are brilliant marketers. I wouldn't discourage any kid from seeking fame based on brilliance.

What do you think?

Lucy the Elephant, True Jersey

New Jersey can be magical.

Just a few miles in any direction can make all the difference between urban and rural, rich and poor, new and historic.

There’s also a blessedly thin line between ordinary and unique.

This past weekend, I was in an Atlantic City bar with some photographer friends, when one mentioned that Lucy the Elephant was just three miles to the south.

A short drive later and I was standing in front of the oldest surviving roadside tourist attraction in America: a whimsical six-storey structure built in 1881 by James V. Lafferty, and moved away from the shoreline and restored in 1970 through efforts led by two local Margate City residents.

Despite being a lifelong resident of the Garden State, I had never seen Lucy in real life. So, of course, I took a photo: nothing special, just something out of the ordinary to throw up on social media.

Lucy is surely an elephant to remember, though, because the image produced some out-of-the-ordinary responses:

One stranger wanted to know directions to Lucy. Another commented, “My very close friend’s father moved Lucy back in the ‘70s. Drove her right down Atlantic Avenue! That was a house-lifters dream to move such a legendary piece of history!” Still another stranger commented that her first summer job was as a tour guide at the site.

A friend reminded me that he had a summer house within walking distance from Lucy, if I ever needed to use it. My only sibling, a sister now living in California, added a smiley face with the comment, “Wow, I have not seen Lucy in a very long time!” Before I could reply wondering when she was there when I wasn’t, a high school friend of hers responded, “Remember Lucy? Lol!”

Lucy is “True Jersey,” resonating with people here – and people who remember “here” -- like The Shore.

On my drive back home that evening, just a few miles up the road, I noticed five giant wind turbines with elegant rotors slicing through the air after sunset. So, of course, I pulled to the side of the road and took another photo.

This is the Jersey Atlantic Wind Farm, just off the coast of Atlantic City. It’s the first wind farm to be built here and the first coastal wind farm in all the U.S. The site produces enough emission-free electricity per year to power over 2,000 homes.

The towering structures appear as if from nowhere… just miles from some of the state’s most densely populated urban areas, or sparsely populated farmlands, or the great expanse of Pine Barrens, where the Jersey Devil roams. This is my home: haunted by the sounds of bar bands on Saturday nights, church bells on Sunday mornings and commuter trains to New York City on Mondays.

Before leaving, I turned back for one last look at the skyline… and saw my name, “Bobby V,” in bright 12-storey lights along the whole western facade of Harrah’s  Resort.

How extraordinary, I thought. So, of course, I took another photo.

Others may point out that Bobby V will be performing at Harrah’s later this month. But, in “True Jersey” style, I prefer to think that whatever the R&B singer’s schedule might happen to be, it was merely coincidental to the thrill of seeing my name in lights.

It’s all a matter of perspective, a little geography, and a home-grown faith in magic.

A Man Called Bob... I Mean, Ove

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In my last Goodreads review, I ranted like a grumpy old man about the value of "storytelling." So how unexpectedly great it has been to listen to a story (Audible version) about a literal grumpy old man and re-remember the lesson that a great story can change your perspective in life-affirming ways.

Yes, the grumpy-old-man-masking-a-heart-of-gold-and-an-intriguing-backstory has been done before. But this tale is unsentimental and rings true. Fredrik Backman, you had me at the first haunted words Ove addressed to his wife.

Not only is this pure storytelling at a high level, but this particular version of the story has been translated from Swedish to English. How hard is it to capture the rhythm of literature and not sound a flat note in another language? I used to have a Latin teacher, a mild-mannered Roman Catholic priest -- and every year he watched young scholars struggle with translating Catullus. It was an incredible experience for him, especially considering the source material. One thing he said he learned was captured in an Old World, no longer-politically-correct maxim: "Translations are like women; the more beautiful they are, the less true."

So I give this book an extra star because of its talented translator -- Henning Koch -- who seems to have produced an English version of this book that's both beautiful and true.

I'm also resisting an urge to that star away, since Ove's beloved "Saab" may someday re-appear as a brand and this book would then fall into the hands of that most reviled of all storytellers, the content strategist. But until that day comes, I stand by this review.

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Is Storytelling Overrated?

A review (of sorts) of:
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In August 2015, Stephen King -- yes, THE Stephen King (if we are to trust Twitter's blue checkmark) -- tweeted: "A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS, by Paul Tremblay: Scared the living hell out of me, and I'm pretty hard to scare."

So, who am I to argue the King? And yet... I found most of this story, save for some cleverly written blog entries by the main character, to be excruciating rather than scary. Perhaps because I raised two daughters in real life, and the plot here centers around two young sisters.

I also started to think about my grandmother as I slogged through this tale. She died years ago, but this book made me recall how she used to wonder why anyone read would fiction. "It's just silly stories," she'd say.

Now, admittedly, she was a Bible reader, so she did take some stories as a matter of faith (which this book dutifully ridicules). But, setting that debate aside, her main point was: "Why waste your time?"

Of course, here in 2017, storytelling is supposed to be the answer to everything... love, happiness, marketing, effective communication... you name it.

The Twitter background of my boss (who is real, despite not having a blue checkmark), even features this quote from Plato: "Those who tell stories rule the world."

As I listened to the Audible version of this book, though -- realizing it was a masterful writing job, and I'm sure the movie will be successful and that the author will be, if not already, rich -- I kept wondering, "Why am I wasting my time? Haven't I seen, read or heard all this before?"

In fairness, I picked up this book to be scared -- and, on one level, I think I am. But not because of all the predictable gore and manipulated shocks in this story.

I'm scared because I think my sainted grandmother might have been on to something, after all. Sometimes a story is just a cigar and a cigar is just a story. If the words aren't Great Gatsby transcendent, if the ideas they express aren't New Testament challenging or enriching, then what the hell am I doing here in 2017?

Am I simply spending my time begging to be frightened, or entertained?

"Tell me a story" may indeed be a building block of love (intimacy), happiness (connection), marketing (persuasion) and effective communication (acceptance).

It just doesn't get us any closer to greater meaning or insight or -- as I think of my grandmother -- redemption.


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