hail to the ketchup stainer

"These are the good years in the golden sun, a new day is dawning, a new life has begun. ... Love is flowing like ketchup on a bun. Ketchup. For the good times ... "
Garrison Keillor and the Ketchup Advisory Board may have been wrong. On his radio programme, they told us repeatedly, over the years, that ketchup has "natural mellowing agents".

Every evil thing you ever heard about trump is true, and many other evil things you never heard of. On June 28th, Cassidy Hutchinson, chief aide to trump's chief of staff, gave public testimony concerning trump and the failed putsch. The events were planned, trump approved of trumpsters carrying and ultimately using weapons, trump thought his vice-president deserved to be killed by his other minions. But, the testimony that has most caught the public's interest is the toddler-in-chief's food tossing tantrums.
 

2022 Miscellany #8

Tomatillos (husk tomatoes) grow with their own packaging.

World needs more greyhound art. [west side Cleveland]

St. Raphael's statue at St. Michael Cleveland has a new paint job.

a bust near the greyhounds

Hammer

Sickle [Rockefeller Greenhouse lawn]

saw the inside finally

To-day, i was inside [click for outside] Anshe Emeth Beth Tefilo's Cleveland Jewish Center, now Cory United Methodist, for the first time. I wanted more time to view the glass. There was a programme for Cleveland History Days. The building was in use in 1922, before completion. The glass is beautiful, and the craftsmanship excellent. I asked about the studio, and it is unknown now. I was surprised how dim the lighting; fotos i had seen must have been on long exposures. The sunlight hit this torch to make it seem to be alive with fire (my foto does not do justice).

A goodly number of the glass had fire. Moses' burning bush on Mt. Sinai is a tall tree. There was another roundel with an altar of holocaust, a complete burnt offering of a sacrificial animal; a roundel with a lit menorah, and three windows above the bema had two torches each. The glass subjects are nearly the same at the original Temple B'nai Jeshurun which was built in 1906, and since c.1923 has been Shiloh Baptist.

The very tall windows are interrupted by a large balcony. I heard to-day, the architect Albert Janowitz, did not want the balcony; it detracted from the windows. He was right. At the time, men were on the ground floor, and women sat in the balcony. Full capacity was said to be 3 thousand, to my eyes, it looked less. I  have read it was 24 hundred, that i could agree with.

The electrical light fixtures are menorahs with a star of David. In the center of the stars there are glass jewels. This one is missing.

Dome represents the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Previously, the chandelier was a much more impressive one, it had a star of David. It crashed, about the time a Cleveland Orchestra concert was to be held for MLK Jr. Day (i heard to-day).

I think the glaziers, and the stained glass designer were not Jewish. This looks like symbols for the Trinity.

The scrolls when made were unwritten upon, probably. Now, most have a commemoration from what appears to be fund raising from 1992.

The ark of the Torah would have been behind this curtain of the tabernacle. But, since 1946-7 the shul became a church, and the ner tamid (eternal light) was replaced by this lighted cross. Very little, with the exception of the addition of felt banners, has been changed visually. Ok, there is a drum set on the bema. 

There is far more building than merely the worship space. There is a ballroom, and many classrooms,and other things. Recently money has come in to do structural improvements. Part of a wall was removed, and this radiator is visible for a stairway.

Cory United Methodist has recently received the first historical marker for the Cleveland African American Civil Rights Trail. For some time in the 1950s, and 60s, Cory was the largest Black congregation in Cleveland. Many prominent men came to speak there: WEB Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, ML King Jr., Malcolm X spoke his "Ballot or the Bullet" speech for the first time.

and the Holy Ghost has gone to the coast

Baptism of Jesus as central medallion. September 6 2014 foto.

Rose hips as central medallion. June 20 2022. Whitney Stained Glass.

8' chandelier

It is very common for an Eastern church to have a chandelier in the nave before the iconostasis and the sanctuary. Holy Ghost did not. This one is up in the correct location, and it is better looking than the one that hangs over Euclid Avenue.

Holy Ghost Greek Catholic Church, and later Byzantine Catholic Cultural Center has not been available to celebrate Divine Liturgy, or other religious service for some years. It went out for sale, and has been sold. It began as part of the Roman Catholic Cleveland Diocese, and the church was built in 1909. It was the the first parish for Ruthenians [Rusyns] in Cleveland. They are a Slavonic people  centered around the Carpathian  Mountains. Borders change, and people migrate [often forcibly]. By national borders, they are at the junction of Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Some parishes are also in Hungary, and Croatia. In 1969, it became part of the newly formed Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma. Cleveland [Parma] also has an eparchy of Ukrainians since 1983, those parishes had been previously in the Byzantine Eparchy, and before that with them in the Roman Catholic Diocese too. The Rusyn language is considered by some as a dialect of Ukrainian.

The eparchy has been closing other parishes:  St. Nicholas Cleveland, St. Eugene Bedford, St. Gregory the Illuminator Lakewood. Holy Spirit Parma, and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist Parma have merged with St. Mary Cleveland.

Holy Ghost had many decal murals on walls, and the ceiling. Now all that will be white. The choir loft's floor has had the levels removed, and a new staircase is being built. The former side altar niches have been boxed up. The Eparchy had removed the iconostasis, and altars after closing the church. [click1], [click2].

Currently the building is being remodelled as a wedding and event center, to be called the Elliot. It is expected to be opened in July. This area of Cleveland is currently called "Tremont", after the grade school. The area had many different churches [click3]. Old St. Vladimir's, Our Lady of Mercy have also been turned into businesses, Zion UCC has become apartments. Emmanuel Evangelical United Brethren has had two different congregations come and go, and is now empty.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

All in a short walk around the intersection of West 25th and Lorain in Cleveland.

 

thinking of banned books

  

 Danville Public Library Banned Books Week [not my foto]

Couple of months back banned books made the national headlines on account of Republicans had to show who they were. So yeah, i've been thinking of banned books. As a teenager i read several of the books that are still being banned. I went to a Catholic High School, many of these books were assigned reading. There was no objection, save those by students who disliked certain books because of personal preference. I read, "The Lord of the Flies", i did not like it, had no thought of it should not be read by others. 

Looking over frequently banned books, those i read as a teenager: outside of assigned reading: "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Animal Farm"; and assigned: “Of Mice and Men”, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn", "The Canterbury Tales", "A Farewell To Arms". A few others i read in 7th and 8th grades. Books assigned to other students in the same school: “Slaughterhouse-Five”, "Brave New World", "The Catcher in the Rye". In a public grade school, i vaguely remember a teacher reading "Charlotte's Web" to the class. She liked that Charlotte could write, and spell. We had spelling as a grade.

Several decades later, other books that did not exist then by another generation of writers that have been frequently banned: "The Handmaid's Tale", “Beloved”, "The Color Purple".  Most of these books are banned to have ideas silenced:  anti-militarism, “anti-business attitude”, “troubling ideas about race relations”, exposing hypocrisy ["Elmer Gantry", Sinclair Lewis has fallen out of favor by teachers, he had other great novels].

I was introduced to "The Story of Ferdinand" by Captain Kangaroo. The book came out in 1936, and was promptly banned by the fascist states. Other children books i read that were banned: "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl", "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", "Black Beauty" [the title was offensive].

2022 Miscellany #7

When I Was Naked... [see Matthew]
Malachi House

Community West Foundation has bought 5 bronzes of Timothy Schmalz's sculptures of the Gospel of Matthew's "as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me". 

previous posts on these  [click 1],    [click 2].

 

St. Luke's UCC was originally a German church in Old Brooklyn, the year stone is hard to read, it is incised in dark granite. It has been vacant for some years. It may be demolished. To the left is the church, to the right is the school, behind is Pearl Road Methodist, all reflected on a car roof.

 

Several buildings in Cleveland built as Catholic churches are no longer such. Perhaps this is the oldest one, at least one of the earliest ones to have other occupants. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament was built in 1922-23. That parish merged, and moved into, nearby St. Adalbert in 1961. Both are between Quincy and Central. OLBS was on E. 79th, the current occupant is Harvest Evangelical Ministries.

 old foto, unknown source, of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

taken from behind a screen door

Goethe, Cleveland German Cultural Garden

also on Clinton

During the three days before Fathers' Day, Avon Ohio has a Duck Tape Festival. The last two years the coronavirus pandemic cancelled it. Veterans' Memorial Park was the last location, and the parade was on Detroit. That was also scheduked to be the last time there. So, the new location was at the the minor league ballpark. It became a more modest affair. The University of Cincinnati art students were given baseball as this year's theme. Some very good art pieces were made.

possibly the best of this year's sculptures

in our continuing series, posing with greyhounds, Cassius

contest between democracy and fascism

A priori: the Republican is the party of dirty tricks, and "hardball".
For comparative scholars, it is obvious that the Republican Party in the United States is a fascist party.

The Democrats do not want to state the obvious. Money does not have a distaste for fascism. Perhaps, a plurality of votes wins elections. There is a segment of the population, whose support you will never receive; it is foolhardy, nay, it is stupid to consider and court them. Hillary Clinton was clear, and correct, about the deplorables.

e.g. Unfortunately, Ohio is a Republican controlled state, with a smallish majority of Repuke voters. Tim Ryan is running for US senator against JD Vance (or what ever alias he is currently using). Ryan is courting the deplorables in advertisements, noting where he has agreed with Trump, and speaking of the mistakes of Democrats (and those were when some Democrats went along with Republicans). He also, in another commercial smartly went after Vance with the words of Vance.

January 6th 2021 was the date of a failed putsch. Many Republican officeholders were part of it. Such membership is an act of treason. Other Repukes, who were not active in the sedition and treachery, are fine with it. A minuscule number are against it.

Republicans often, and easily, without hesitation or qualms smear Democrats with what Bill Barr would call "bullshit". Democrats ought to refer everywhere to the Republican Party as the the party of Fascism and Treason. To quote Albert Camus, "One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.".

Before, the Democrats would refer to their party as "the Democracy". It was stupid to have stopped. In this country, we are engaged in a contest between democracy and fascism. This should be said frequently, and then again.

don't allow the victrola to get stuck

Remember the 9ᵗʰ of November 1923!—commemorative stamp 1935 

Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!...

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."—George Santayana 1905

Guy Fawkes was executed for trying to blow up the English Parliament in 1605. The day, 5ᵗʰ of November is celebrated as Bonfire Night in the United Kingdom.

The Nazis had a failed putsch on the 9ᵗʰ of November 1923. They marked the commemoration on a stamp twelve years later, after they were successful.

The 6ᵗʰ of January 2021, the Republican demagogue unleashed an initial failed putsch in the United States. The party is programming a framework for another attempt.

photographs of abandoned places #37

Crawford Road Christian Church

Christian Church is another name for Disciples of Christ, an American denomination of Restorationist Protestantism, which began on the western frontier at the very beginning of the 19th century. The Stone-Campbell Movement wanted a non-denominational unity, since then they have become a mainline Protestant denomination. The earliest presence near Cleveland was led by the one time Baptist, and later Mormon Sidney Rigdon. The Stoners were Presbyterians from Kentucky, and the Campbellites were Baptists from southwestern Pennsylvania.

In Cleveland, they had at least three churches of historical and architectural interest. Franklin Circle Church [click] began in Ohio City, a rival town absorbed by Cleveland. For a short time before the War for the Union, James Garfield was a minister there. After the war a Gothic style building was built, and it still functions for the denomination. A beautiful church [click] opened in 1906 on Euclid Avenue, it was sold in 1955 when the congregation moved. The third one was this one built in 1907.

From the outside, the main stained glass windows, the central of which is Jesus knocking on a door (Apoc. iii. 20). I have not been inside the building, but have seen a foto. The Euclid Avenue church had windows by J.R.Lamb Studios, the Crawford church has similar style. The then mayor of Cleveland, Tom Johnson was a member of this Hough neighbourhood church, but for a short time. Johnson was born in Kentucky, and died in 1911.

The Holy Spirit caged, this group of windows is protected from the outside by wire.

Some damage here, similar windows glass replaced by plywood. Once the sandstone trim had been painted.

 

Cedar Avenue Church + AD 1883 + Crawford Road Church + AD 1907 +

Some conjecture, since i lack the information, did these two churches merge?, or was Crawford the new location?

 

The other face of the yearstone reads, Disciples of Christ. At some time in the past they were gone. New signs were attached for reserved parking for overseer, and pastor. There is no parking lot, but a driveway. Now, looking at the building, there is a church in the front, and a residence in the back. On the 'internets' it is listed as 2 bedroom apartment. My limited foray on the 'internets' suggest that a pentecostal style ministry was active here between 2015-18, called 4 Real Church.