Happy New Year, Baby!

BY  |  Saturday, Dec 31, 2011 11:39am  |  COMMENTS (8)

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Stock Up on Tissues: Cold Season is Here

BY  |  Saturday, Dec 31, 2011 11:00am  |  COMMENTS (6)

It happens at our house every year at this time without fail. My oldest child, the one at school—that giant petri dish of bacteria and viruses—comes home with a cough, which worsens over the week and keeps him up at night. He then passes it on to his baby sister, who puts her own spin on the sickness and then sends it my way. After a few days of stuffy headed numbness, I begin to emerge from the fog only to find my husband unable to get out of bed. Somehow, the cold virus that passes among my family members gets worse with time and is hardest on him.

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Before We Say Goodbye to the Season….

BY  |  Saturday, Dec 31, 2011 9:00am  |  COMMENTS (2)

Here is a picture of Montclair Winters Past: the former American Ironworks at 194 Bloomfield Ave., which added charm and the promise of undiscovered treasures to the avenue before it was purchased to make way for a condo building in 2005, and then abandoned.

This picture was sent to us by Gordon Emrich, brother of the late Michael Emrich, the entrepreneurial antiquarian who owned Americana Ironworks and passed away this past year at the age of 49.

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New Year’s Day Fundraiser for Yogic Chai

BY  |  Friday, Dec 30, 2011 2:23pm  |  COMMENTS (1)

The Karuna Shala is holding a New Year’s Day benefit for Yogic Chai, which has been trying to raise funds for its online chai business. A New Beginnings Flow with Ivy class will include live drumming by Icarus. A $20 donation is suggested.

The class will be Sunday morning, Jan. 1, from 10:00 – 11:30. For more information click here.

Pat Kenschaft: Tips for Winter Gardening

BY  |  Friday, Dec 30, 2011 12:30pm  |  COMMENTS (3)

Happy New Year!  As we start 2012, the active gardener need not stay idle, or even just pour lustily over the gardening catalogs, an inspiring and informative winter activity in itself.

This morning I dropped a shovel on a bare spot of the garden and the garden bounced it back.  The eternal optimist, I then thrust the shovel down nearby and it went right into the soil!  So I then filled a large lasagne pan with soil from around the second spot and put it into the oven, now empty from Christmas baking.  The compost was harder to dig, but I put another large pan of compost in the oven.  Someday in the not-too-distant future when we go out to a dinner or a party, I will set the oven at 200 or 250, depending on how long I plan to be away.  Then I will be able to make potting soil for early plants inside.

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A Message from Alex Torpey

Friday, Dec 30, 2011 10:40am  |  COMMENTS (1)

South Orange Village President Alex Torpey is reminding South Orange residents of three ways to give back to the community this year. On his website, he suggests:

1. Give Blood. 30 minutes can give someone else life.  Find nearby locations to do so here.

2. Support the Squad. And the dozens of volunteers who donate hundreds of hours every week to keep South Orange safe. Donate to the South Orange Rescue Squad here.

3. Find a community group to get involved in. Spend just a few hours a month helping to make South Orange a better place. From SOPAC, to YouthNet, to Clean Sweep, there is a way for you get involved. Full list here.

Watch Torpey discuss his ideas for giving back in this special video:

The Modern Music Academy: Making Grammy Dreams Real on Grove Street

BY  |  Friday, Dec 30, 2011 9:00am  |  COMMENTS (0)

The co-owners of Montclair’s new The Modern Music Academy (MMA), Jarrett and Jenny Zellea, have a long list of music and entertainment accomplishments including drumming with Grammy-award-winner Santana, hob-nobbing with Al Gore for Live Earth, teaching middle-schoolers and high-schoolers jazz and drumline skills in both New Jersey and California, and producing a myriad of television shows – like American Idol – and live-streaming concerts of artists like Jay-Z and Linkin Park.  Oh, and one more thing: Jarrett also has a couple of Grammy awards in there somewhere.  Not too shabby.

These two New Jersey natives, currently living in Ridgewood, have returned home after years in Los Angeles to open a music school for adults and children.  The school’s focus is on helping its students become whole musicians.  Not satisfied with teaching chord and finger progressions, the Zelleas also offer hands-on lessons in song-writing, recording, video and audio production, and even music marketing.  The school’s goal is to help students “identify as musicians,” not just play an instrument.  All instructors at the MMA are credentialed teachers with degrees in music and education, and they are also working musicians. Continue Reading

The Montclair Post Office is All Out of Madonnas

BY  |  Thursday, Dec 29, 2011 3:30pm  |  COMMENTS (68)

Don’t go looking for any Holiday Baubles or Madonna of the Candelabra 44′s at the Main Montclair Post Office: they’re all out. But don’t they mean Christmas stamps — if they still have Hanukkah and Kwanzaa left?

Oh and by the way, where’s the movement to keep the Ch in Chanukah? Or right, here it is — over on Facebook. Chappy Cholidays everyone!

Montclair Council Concludes 2011With Minor Kerfuffle Over Pre-K

BY  |  Thursday, Dec 29, 2011 1:11pm  |  COMMENTS (14)

The Montclair Township Council’s final meeting for 2011, on December 29, was its annual finance meeting, with only Second Ward Councilor Cary Africk absent.

The finance meeting, in which resolutions regarding expenditures that have to be paid by the end of the year and loose ends that have to be tied up are addressed, occurred mostly without controversy. Eleven out of twelve resolutions, which covered issues such as canceling a bond ordinance after the completion of public works improvements and the return of a $32,250 performance guarantee to a developer for planting trees in accordance with township requirements, passed unanimously. But a minor dustup was caused when First Ward Councilor Rich Murnick sought to amend the temporary budget for 2012 to include funding for the Montclair Community Pre-K.

Murnick had hoped that an inclusion of Pre-K in the temporary budget would give Township Manager Marc Dashield some direction in preparing a 2012 budget to introduce on February 3. “If we did put it back in the temporary, budget, then we’d still have an opportunity as a council to discuss pre-K and the budget is then introduced by the manager, as we then go forward,” he said.

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The Bedbugs Didn’t Bite … Last Night

BY  |  Thursday, Dec 29, 2011 12:03pm  |  COMMENTS (12)

“The Artist,” the French homage to the silent movie era, was high on Mista Barista’s want-to-see list, and it isn’t playing widely. Besides the Clairidge, which has been off my FourSquare list for weeks, it’s playing in East Hanover, Cranford, Edgewater and, of course, New York.

The last time I bought a ticket to the Clairidge, in mid-November, I stayed just long enough to confirm a tip that there was yellow caution tape in one of the theaters. (The tipster had wondered what it was for until she wound up with bedbug bites.)

Like most of my friends, I’ve taken that yellow caution warning to heart, but my daughter went to see “My Week With Marilyn” at the Clairidge on Tuesday night — and since I let her back into my home, and a bed bug scourge has yet to materialize — I decided we could go see the “The Artist” at the Clairidge last night. Continue Reading

Featured Comment

Once you see a picture, the situation becomes more real. So sad for the loss of such a lovely young woman. May her family somehow find peace.
Posted by
Nellie

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