Stupidville

 Ohio River traffic

As i noted before, a great number of my fotos before August 2010 were destroyed, and are now lost. Some little was retrieved.  I worked a month from mid-October to mid-November 2008 in Steubenville, and stayed near Wellsville, and Lisbon. For a few days it was quite warm, and the foliage brilliant, and this was followed by a killing frost and everything became brown. For a bit Route 7 follows the Ohio bank, on the other side of the river is West Virginia. Radio stations were from Pittsburgh. A lot of people who came for a little while called Steubenville, 'Stupidville'. Seven fotos were recovered from that trip, five are on this page.

 trailers in a camping ground

 hill between Ohio River and Little Yellow Creek

 on abandoned road there was some masonry debris of demolished buildings

snowy parish

 parking lot median crucifix

Saint Michael. Independence, O. 8 January 2011.

Piccola Italia

 Be Not Afraid

I have lost many fotos, and went through some trouble regaining some of them. It took me a time to get the date of this one, 24 April 2010.  Again, and again, these words are spoken by angels in Scripture. Jesus says this to the Two Maries outside the sepulchre on Easter morn, "Nolite timere". At the Mayfield entrance of Cleveland's Holy Rosary, there is a metal railing, this cross was bolted to it. One would see this side of the cross leaving the church. The message is for all of us. For those of us who fought to regain parishes, this was one of our slogans. 

Holy Rosary was in no danger of closing. Lennon (Cleveland's bishop) as many American bishops were de-nationalising dioceses (a form of ethnic cleansing). Many people believed this church was not going to be closed. Some people only go to church for weddings, baptisms, funerals, and perhaps Christmas, and Easter. Many Italian men are not particularly observant, and this parish had been the home to several involved in certain businesses. Lennon went very hard at the nationalities. He closed only one Italian church, and it had lost parish status years ago. Our Lady of Mount Carmel-East was officially an oratory (chapel), and its closure was not made public.

I fotoed one day, an elderly Italian woman took notice of me (as did one woman at St. Rocco's). We were in the narthex (vestibule). We had a small discussion about the ongoing closures. There was a framed photograph of Lennon on the wall. She waved her cane at it. She to me did say, Lennon knows very well what she thinks of him. She also had written to him. As deep, and as broad as opposition was (and is) to lennonism, it is not publicly recorded, and therefore, many do not know of it. Such silence protects the aggressor, and wrong doer. These two women (and they are not alone) loved their parish churches, this is something Richard Lennon can not fathom.

I found a bunch of fotos, i really liked from Holy Rosary. Here are a few:

Holy Rosary church seen through electric rail stanchion

 The eye needs to find interesting sights to view, appreciate, and on occasion to photograph.

 Saint Anthony of Padua and Lisbon is a favorite among many Italians, and other peoples.

Saint John Bosco is another favorite saint. To the left is Bosco's big grey dog (Grigio), many believed he was an angelic protector.

 church of two dogs

It is not the only dog that appears in the church. The usual altarpiece, on the high altar is Mary, Queen of the Rosary, giving rosaries to SS. Dominic and Thérèse, and there is a dog. There is a pun on the Dominicans (Domini canes, dogs of the Lord). The dog could be carrying a bouquet of flowers, but it is a torch.

The altarpiece is moved to another room, to place a statue of the Risen Christ on the altar for Easter.

SS. Mariano, Biagio, Giacomo were patron saints of the village of Rionero Sannitico, Campobasso Italy. Many of the villagers belonged to St. Marian parish, which became a part of Holy Rosary in 1975. These souvenirs of remembrances now have an alcove.

 and i can throw in other pictures, but i will stop with this one

Sunday at the Temple

 a column at Tifereth-Israel, Cleveland Ohio; known for years as Silver's Temple

To-day was a gray day, and a picture of the roman-byzantine dome dull. On a sunny day it is brilliant gold.

 the same emblem viewed from the front steps

and approaching the entrance

 The Temple's cornerstone was laid 1923/5683. In 1963 a suburban branch synagogue was built,  which holds the usual services to-day.

photographs of abandoned places #2

 Masonic Temple, Newburgh (Cleveland) O. 1916.

This is not angled for effect, but to avoid some wires and branches that the camera would rather focus on. The building is not to be occupied. There is no inkling that the building will be.

 Hiram, Tyrian, Widow's Son, Sendeth To King Solomon

The ornaments are yet in tact. The scroll work on the building's ornaments are still sharp. Supra is the keystone and its anagram (read clockwise). If nothing else it is something to look at. At one time, the fraternity had built many impressive buildings, with detailed rooms. Many tradesman had been freemasons. It was good for employment. Now, all such fraternal lodges have reduced memberships. They have an excess of buildings.

Without going into detail, the freemasons have much allegorical mythology. Some believe it to be historical. Their mythic hero is Hiram Abiff. Many Christian objections to masonry concern his resurrection story being imitatively blasphemous. There are three Hirams in the Old Testament, Abiff is a fictive conglomeration. So much of freemasonry cobbles snippets, and builds a story. Recently, the writer, Dan Brown became wildly popular using the same method. Some accept fiction as fact.

 compass and square of the (Grand) Geometer

 

Part of the many fictions, is the Egyptian influence. Notice the decorative molding, lintel, and jambs of the entrance.

Another song that ...

...He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes.
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes.

Chorus:
Let us go to the banks of the ocean,
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man.
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.

Cleveland is blessed with great non-commercial radio. Now, the only good commercial radio station in the county, WCLV 104.7 (my fingers want to type 95.5) has become part of public radio. Most of that is college radio. All the nationality programmes are important for their communities. The diversity on these stations have their audiences that are not served by Clear Channel, and the few others.

Saturday mornings, for years i have tried to catch WRUW's Jimmie Wilson's Roll Away the Dew, before that WCSB's Steve Traina's folk programme (it describes itself: Lyric-intensive folk music with a message or two). And they are not alone: WJCU has Uncle Fred (A few months back, i was in a friend's car, and it just passed 9 p.m. Sunday. I said, "it's time for Emmy Lou", and turned the radio to 88.7.  Says he to me, "How did you know?".  He always starts with Emmy Lou. All of these guys love Emmy Lou, and damn, they should); WCSB also has Timmie the Hippie; WRUW had When the Roses Bloom Again, the host 'Cousin Dave' died and his side kick inherited the show, eventually he changed the name to Laying Down Tracks; and there is Bill Kennedy's Sweeney Astray; and some others. These fellows have played this music for many years.

Many of the lyrics, that i have quoted, (and, b, c), come from this genre. Many of these songs were of the last generation. Now many of their songs have been covered by newer singers. To-day, Jimmie Wilson played Mara Levine singing, The Dutchman. Steve Goodman recorded this on his second album, Somebody Else's Troubles 1973. He changed tempi over performances. Michael Peter Smith wrote it in 1968. I first heard Goodman sing it over WCLV, many years ago. I and many thought he wrote it, just as many thought Arlo Guthrie wrote Goodman's City of New Orleans. The Dutchman has been covered by many, yet being wonderful, it has a limited audience. It is always a great song.

Well, what i am getting at, is the poignant beauty of the song. The chorus is simple, sweet, melodic and melancholic. It is sung by the Dutchman, the narrator sings the verses. The first half sets the scene (as in so many folk songs), then the pathos—Long ago, I used to be a young man. This can be said by so many, and it is always wistful and sad: so many years gone; vitality often gone; loss. The next line is sweet, by itself, and coupled with Margaret's lyrics (especially the last two lines of the first verse) it is great, great, love. And dear Margaret remembers that for me/He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes. The Dutchman's sanity is only sometimes there, but she remembers him as he once was, and she takes care of him now, now when he can not. They have spent many years together, more than they had before they met, and she has to carry both of them.

Smith, who had not known before to-day, i saw and heard on youtube, and read a biography on Wikipedia, and found a page of his lyrics. Well, there is a bunch, and i only skimmed. His breadth and frame reminds me of the poet Billy Collins. In the wiki article, it mentions Smith's catholicity. Just over a few glances, i say, "yes".

And the line that puts the song over the top is: Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes. They did not have children, they both wanted. Love, sadness, loss, togetherness, union, that which is not and should be. This is a song that makes one cry. Emotion brings tears, and the flow is some catharsis.

It is a pro-Life song. [And several times, i have thought of going to the January march in the District (as i also thought of going to Columbus Georgia in November), but it being Inauguration, the crazy quotient will be up (the monomania, often hypocritical, and allied to nuttery—i can no longer stomach). Perhaps, this aside greatly detracts.] I do not know who realises it, but it is.

the abandonment of God

That  phrase is incomplete. Is God the object? or the possessor? current or past?

This is an important metaphysical question, the relation of man and God. We know we exist, what of God? And then if He is, how do we define Him?

There is a growing population that is not involved with God. For many that are God believing, it is difficult to understand. For they are sometimes surrounded by family, and congregation that are co-religionists, and often co-culturalists. It is a bit unexpected in finding that someone is not. For their friends, and relatives that are not, it is just as if they are only lax, or inactive. Of course, many have periods of doubt, and lost belief; but they have the frame, the ground. Many saints had dry periods.

Now, there are people who grew up in non-religious households. To them the lack of framing is not odd. It was absent throughout. Still, some can understand the construction.

Why i brought this up, is viewing people on youtube. I came to youtube to see/listen to songs. Over time, i see people have used it as a vehicle of public confession. Many are performing, but confess anyway in an aside, and without being asked. These few (and they are mostly women) that i viewed much of their pieces, nonchalantly state as a non-sequitar, "O, by the way, i don't believe in God". Now, none of these have been obnoxious, or evangelical about it. Why share this? It is out of context. I presume they are compelled to make a voluntary admission. After hearing several people make the announcements, i think some are sad about it. They are not proud. Some rationally can not come to belief.

Watching one comedienne through a series of episodes in, i think, just in one she said, she did not believe. She speaks about several people in her circle, a subgroup thereof display religious behaviour. She is most skeptical about acquaintances whom try to trick her into participation. [Now, i will go beyond just this, to a general statement. I have encountered, myself, such individuals and groups. And i find them almost despicable. They employ strategies of evangelisation, that are 'cons'. Trickery towards theism is disgusting. Jesus is strong and valid enough, that he does not need people to lie for him.] In another episode she has a cross in a necklace. There is a little dissonance.

This comedienne, she, is obviously depressed over everything at some points of her life. She is an honest observer of her own suffering. Humor is truthful. I have to believe she feels painfully abandoned. It is not that God does not exist, but he is conspicuously absent, perhaps willfully.

Now, some say, we find God in others. Now, when one encounters supposedly religious people, some professionally so, and see that God is not present in them, it is easy to suspect that absence is universal. Some people do not come to religion, because they are pushed away, often by those supposed religious.

I see a longing for God. We read, and are told that He desires us. Comprehension finds indifference, and absence. These people are not atheists [in the sense of being against God], they are not really agnostics [postulating unknowability], they are without God. 'Godless' is often used as a damning sobriquet. Here* it is more proper as a term of despair, and should not be used disparagingly, but woefully.
________________________
*This is different for those that are proud and happy to be godless, and there are evangelists of atheism.

Four Freedoms

Franklin Roosevelt's State of the Union Address of 6 January 1941 is known as the Four Freedoms Speech. The world was at war, the United States not yet. There was a military dictatorship in Japan expanding the empire. Other fascists were in control in Italy, Germany and their allied states. Still in the United States there were fascist supporters, who saw such a system of business and military, that appealed to triumphal nationalism, leading the state as their ideal. Although that system fell disastrously by 1945, the United States has one of its two political parties (and their supporters) thinking, and speaking in the same manner. Those who were against Roosevelt and Democracy are still against Roosevelt and Democracy.

...In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb... — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freedom from Want

A pair of hands hold a globe.

 Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

On a small triangle bordered by Tremont, Kenilworth and West 10th. The old St. John Cantius High is across the street. There are astoundingly few such memorials in America, even worse it is difficult voicing all these four freedoms.  

Freedom from Fear

Tremont School playground in background

photographs of abandoned places #1

 Chibas Jerusalem Synagogue. Glenville, Cleveland 1926-1952.

I have recently come across the term 'photographers of abandoned places'. There is something interesting in ruins. Things were built to be used. Sometimes, places fall out of use. Nature reclaims. Physics, biology, and geology will transform. Before all that passes, history and archaeology can describe.

On the east side of Cleveland, many Jewish congregations moved their worship sites to new buildings in the suburbs. The big share was in the 1950s. I read that of some twenty that became Black Protestant churches, the former Chibas Jerusalem is the only one abandoned. Their congregation left the building in 1952 to merge with another Glenville synagogue that moved to the Heights in '49.  The fenced property now says 'Pentecostal Apartments'. 

I was sent a photograph of one of these triple windows surrounded by flaming, autumnal, vine foliage. I had not travelled this street before, and came just to use the camera. One window made its way to the new museum of Judaica in Beachwood.

Driving through Black neighborhoods one can recognise the Star of Davids. The wheel some associate with Hinduism, but here it may refer to Ezekiel's chariot wheels. There is much esoteric folklore, mysticism, and kabbalistic references to the wheel. It is beyond me.

__________________________________________

postscriptum: building is gone 
Nov 7, 2013 part of the building collapsed.

old buildings reference old cars

Pierce Arrow E. 46 & Carnegie. 1917

The architects for this building were involved in the Cuyahoga Court House, which internally had great stone work. Most of the show room windows have been filled by painted bricks, the tile work was untouched.

Baker Electric E. 71 & Euclid. 1910

Studebaker W. 117 near Clifton

 Bailey Buick became Congressman Kucinich's office in Lakewood