Jefe's House

Jatra star Tapasi Moon

I’m thrilled to share this piece Drexel University asked me to write for their website. It’s only one small part of my Fulbright-Nehru research but the first that any of it’s been published (hopefully this is just an appetizer). I’m honored that they took interest enough to have asked me for it.

Yours Truly backstage with actors Subhayu Mukherjee, Dibakar De and Tapashi Moon.

Ashok Banerjee and Biswajit Majh

Timir Mondal and RJ Jayee

Light board operator Atanu

Tapashi Moon, Bengali film star Dulal Lahiri, Ruma Dasgupta and Subhayu Mukherjee

Full article on Drexel University’s website here.

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Mine is not an official US Department of State website. The views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State.

Actress-Director Ruma Dasgupta as Rani Rashmoni with Tapasi Moon in the historical-devotional drama “Korunamoyi Rani Rashmoni” (“Gracious Rani Rashmoni”) by Sunil Choudhury. Lyricist Ujal Biswas, music by Swapan Pakrasai. Produced by the Sri Chaitanya Opera.

I’m honored that the Philly-based The Bridge PHL theatre company has invited me to give a lecture and workshop on Jatra theatre, one of my research areas as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar.

Jatra is a Bengali word meaning travel or journey. Jatra theatre, or jatra opera as it is often called in India, is a form of mobile, traveling folk theatre native to India’s northeastern state of West Bengal, dating back several centuries.

By the 19th century, jatra companies began to look away from the purely religious themes that had been their core function, and began to tackle historical subjects and social issues.

Jatra has functioned as a living newspaper, long before any of its playwrights and performers had heard of Theatre of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal hadn’t even been born yet). Long before Brecht, jatra companies worked in a tradition of intentionally nonrealistic acting and minimal use of props and set.

And there is so much more to tell…

Suggested donation $10

Mine is not an official US Department of State website. The views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State

Ready to Run

Had a blast running today in the Riverwards Run to raise money for public schools in NE Philly’s river wards area.

The Rock to the Future house band

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At the finish we were regaled by middle and high school students from the Rock to the Future music program for at-risk youth. They were amazing!

The big check.

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We raised $5000. I was proud to be part of it.

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Today wrapped up my 4th and final session of serving again this spring as a playwriting mentor to at-risk middle school youth in West Philly through Drexel University Theater Program Director Nick Anselmo‘s Mantua Theater Project. The plays are moving, hysterical, poignant, zany, all of the above. Next they get handed off to professional actors and directors and performed for the community as an evening of short, kid-written plays. It’s an unbelievable experience for everyone including me, and, most importantly, it blows the kids’ minds and opens them up to a whole new world of expressive possibility.

I was thrilled to be hired by this acclaimed, historic Philadelphia independent school to produce, write, direct, edit and voice (whew!) a short promotional video at a steep discount as a way of donating to the school.  I’m doubly thrilled that I made a terrific choice in hiring the incredible Sarah Moses to be my shooter.  All content is ©2018 by Frankford Friends School. “Continuing revelation” is a term used by Quakers to mean that God continues to reveal divine truth to the world through our Inner Light, or that of God, within us.

I confess. I’m one of the five remaining nerds who’ve been keeping Radio Shack hanging on by a rapidly fraying thread these past few years and have been heartbroken watching them pop like bubbles in NYC and Philadelphia. This unique electronics chain brings back childhood memories in Virginia.I first saw and used a computer, the TRS-80, there, and my poor mouth watered. I knew I would never be able to own one.

It has been a mainstay these days for components my young son and I use in our electrical crafting projects.  Sure, you can get that stuff online but it’s so much fun going through all the little drawers  at Radio Shack, browsing for various colored LEDs,  different sized toggle switches and numerous knobs.

The lone holdout in Philly, to my knowledge, was the one at 1616 Chestnut in bustling Center City. Imagine my shock when I finally went there again last week after months of carrying a tattered Post-It shopping list around in my wallet that read “Blick” and “wire” in my nearly illegible lefty scrawl, to find that yet another Radio Shack had met its maker. Blick is Dick Blick art supplies just a few blocks away at 13th and Chestnut. At least I’d be able to stop in there soon and cross that one off my shopping list.

A few days later I had wheels for the day to go fishing in southern Jersey on Long Beach Island about 90 minutes away.  I swung by the sad, abandoned Radio Shack again on my way out of town, hoping maybe there’d be some info in the window along the lines of, Please visit our nearest location at… but the bereaved staff hadn’t even tried. Here’s all I found:

That left me with two choices; spend my day, and my car rental, tracking down Radio Shacks, or spend my day fishing.  According the web, the nearest Radio Shack was way off in northeast Philly on Aramingo Avenue. It was listed online as open, but then again so had this one been.

I didn’t bother calling to check but opted for a compromise instead, reaching for my phone. Perfect, there was a Radio Shack listed as open on Route 70 in Marleton, New Jersey, directly en route to LBI.  I kept my eyes peeled as I cruised past and, sadly, it was covered in SPACE AVAILABLE signs from a realty company.  I didn’t even need to slow down. In the end, I came up empty-handed on both the Radio Shacks and the fish, but nonetheless what a lovely summer day to have tried both.

  My son’s latest crafting project:  an electrical birthday card for a friend complete with on-off toggle switch and an LED bindi (or teep as we say in Bengali). Components: two CR2016 button batteries in a holder, a two-position toggle switch, red LED and small gauge single strand wire.

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Thrilled that Bidisha Dasgupta will be performing newly choreographed Indian Classical Dance (bharatanatyam) pieces in the Dance Diversity Tour on Saturday, April 16th in Philly. Two shows. Tix are $10 until April 2nd and $15 afterwards. You haven’t bought yours yet?

A Shaheb’s Guide to India

How a simple father-son craft project became a global, epic diorama

Five years ago this month my wife Bidisha and I got married a full Hindu wedding in India. Four years ago our son was born.

This past Thanksgiving while carving the turkey at our Philadelphia home I got to the bone that my granny from rural southwestern Virginia used to save and make into a turkey bone Santa sled decoration at Christmastime every so often. It’s a morbid Appalachian thing, you wouldn’t understand. In a fit of nostalgia I decided I’d give it a whirl and introduce my young son to a part of his cultural history.

To make sure I was really remembering correctly I Googled “turkey bone sled” and one of the first things that came up was someone’s Pinterest page about turkey bone sleds with the header, “My granny made these.” Yep, I was on the right track.

The schematic.

My son and I often do multi-stage, multi-day art projects so I told him we were going to embark on this “small” project. I’m thinking the whole thing will be five or six inches long with a couple of ceremonial reindeer pulling it but he insists that it be the full 9 reindeer, and that there be a full moon, and a Pleiades star cluster (the Seven Sisters), Aldebaran (the brightest star in the constellation Taurus and one of the bull’s eyes), a small pine tree like the one we have in a planter outside our house, and our street sign, and snow on the ground, and hovering in the sky above Santa there should be Kartik. Without missing a beat I told him fine but that he’d need to design it on paper first so we’d know exactly what we were making and not leave anything out.

Kartik? That would be the Hindu god Kartik, less famous brother of Ganesh. Kartik is the Pete Best of major goddess Durga’s children. I later learned it’s impossible to find an altar figurine of just Kartik alone, so I convinced him instead to  CONT’D at medium.com>>

Looking for the Pope in Philadelphia

On this overcast, blustery fall day I made a lone pilgrimage on foot two miles from my South Philly home to Center City for a chance at glimpsing Pope Francis, “the people’s Pope,” in person.  All the way up Broad Street, Army or National Guard soldiers — I’m not sure which — in green fatigues hung out casually in pairs on every other street corner. They’d been there since last night but I’m not sure why as no Papal events are planned this far south and barely a soul was out. The city seems apocalyptically deserted.

Click to enlarge photos.

Eventually I came to barricades personed by police and military at every intersection to keep out vehicles but as a pedestrian I could pass freely. Finally, just south of City Hall, I reached one of the security entrances to the main event.  The lines were much shorter than I anticipated, and much friendlier.  Soon I was inside the secure zone.

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Although I’m not Catholic and have serious disagreements with the Catholic Church and its checkered history, the Pope is a major historical figure and he’s right here in my town so naturally I wanted to be a part of the event.  Like all these visitors from around the world I was one more gawking pilgrim eager to see “the people’s Pope” in the flesh.

Crossing Love Park I got my first glimpse of one of the Jumbotrons, on which the Pope was just starting (continue reading…)

Cara Blouin and the Art Church of West Philadelphia

present
The Body Horror Mini-Fest