Blogfinger

Arnold Schoenberg 1910. A new direction in the world art scene. Maybe next in OG

Palast Orchester:   “AS TIME GOES BY”

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By Paul Goldfinger, Editor of Blogfinger.net  and Sale organizer.   6/27/26

Jean Bredin and Joy Adase were among a group of Heck Avenue neighbors who once again enjoyed a successful Town-Wide Yard Sale at the west end of Heckland.   These Hecksters are shown in the video  below.  They were going to cancel because of a 95% predicted rain forecast.

But actually there was no rain until later into the afternoon, so they reconsidered.   26 sales were scattered about town.

Mine was the only display that was not a yard sale.  Instead I ran a gallery showing of limited edition black and white photographs by me, Paul Goldfinger.

I enjoyed my event because photo fans stopped on my porch to talk image-making and to converse about a wide variety of topics.

Paul Goldfinger presented his own version of “Art on the Porch..”

Here’s a video by Jean Bredin, a Blogfinger reporter and photographer:

And here’s a link from the Town-Wide Sale in 2022:

2022 Town-Wide

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Firemen’s Park. August 24, 2021. Paul Goldfinger © Ocean Grove, NJ   Click  once to enlarge.

Paul Goldfinger,  Editor Blogfinger.net

Some years ago, every Choir Festival Day, the vocalists arrived early  for rehearsals.  Many had a ritual of setting up picnics in Firemen’s Park.  It was a sort of tradition, and we, across the street, enjoyed it too.  Sometimes they did a bit of rehearsing or reviewing the music.

Then, it abruptly it stopped. We guessed that the CMA decided to feed them.

This park has wonderful trees, many of which were donated by the neighbors. We also donated the boards for the benches.

The picnic above was set beneath a stately Shademaster locust tree which we planted about ten years ago with the help of the Neptune DPW.  It grows 2-feet each year.    It reaches 50- 75 feet tall.   It’s too bad that they don’t prune those trees.

This park attracts so many dog walkers–it is a subculture in the Grove, and many of them are newcomers who have bought homes or are renting to escape the troubles in the Big Apple.  Someday there will be a dog park in town.

This image looks like a family affair, and in recent years there has been an influx of young families, and that is terrific.  The park is used for Wiffle ball games, catch with Dad, kids, 2 mitts, and a hardball, little kids learning how to skateboard along the cement paths, tree climbers, strollers, beach goers,  bench sitters, and bikers taking the shortest distance between 2 points, and, yes picnics.  Moms with toddlers love to enter the park.

I wish more musicians would come to the park as well as some cultural events such as story telling, poetry reading, and art shows.

And maybe some firemen might take down that disgraceful, ugly,  locked iron fence with  dangerous shrubs  surrounding the bell.  File this post under “Ocean Grove life-styles”

The movie Picnic starred William Holden and Kim Novak.  It is from 1955 and is set in a little Kansas town over the Labor Day holiday.

THE McGUIRE SISTERS:  “Theme from Picnic.”

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Note the doubleheader: A fine fish dinner for the family.    Bob loves bird photography.  Bob Bowné.    Click once to enlarge.

Says Bob,    “Hi Paul….
I am still on a bird kick…. I captured some double-fisted breakfast this morning…
I will have mine with a side of Osprey eggs.”
😎
….Bob  Bowné photographer  from Long Branch, formerly of Ocean Grove. He has been publishing  his work  in Blogfinger for years, and for that Bob, we and our readers are grateful.  Do searches in Blogfinger for more of Bob’s award winning work.  He is also known for his surfing images and other wonderful outdoors photos including his photo of Sandy about to blow the fishing pier in the Grove apart.

Bob’s white bird

PAUL DESMOND. (alto sax).  “Where is Love?”    “Album:  Summertime.”    From Oliver. I played alto sax, and Paul was my idol

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Because Saturday June 14 is predicted to be rainy, the Arts Center has decided to invoke their rain date:  Sunday June 15 2025.

This is from an email sent to participants today, Friday at 5:30 pm:

Hello All,

We have made the difficult decision to move Art on the Porch to Sunday, June 15th.

As we get closer to the weekend, the forecast for Saturday is becoming more clear—and unfortunately, it’s looking like a miserable, wet, and soggy day. While Sunday’s weather isn’t perfect, it is expected to be a bit better.

This decision isn’t just about protecting the artwork—we also want to ensure that patrons feel comfortable coming out to browse and shop.

Jeanne  Power-Galli of the JSAC  mentioned that she wanted to  protect the artwork, and that is of vital importance.  If an artist has been working with materials that could be damaged by rain, but also by heat and humidity, there has to be great care to protect the art.   In the case of photographs, most of the images that I planned to exhibit are being protected by plastic envelopes, but even with that, I am not sure that I want to bring my work outdoors on Sunday.

We will have to see how conditions  are on Sunday which also is threatened by rain.

Another option might have been to set up the exhibits  inside the arts center.  Why exactly was this event turned over to the Arts Center?   What do they bring to the table besides some parking and toilets?

I hope that the sponsors and artists get lucky on Sunday, but maybe they could re-schedule for another summer weekend, even another summer Sunday.  I don’t know if the sponsors of  “Art On the Porch”  have to get permission from the CMA or Neptune to do that, but the CMA should have no say since our porches are our private property.

Ocean Grove has a history of art shows and sales on the boardwalk and in parks such as Founder’s Park or Heroes  Park. (My nickname for Firemen’s Park). Such venues are much better for exhibiting art than setting up on porches—a gimmick that is not very conducive to showing and purchasing serious art.  And if the  “Arts Center” is running the show, then why didn’t they switch to a juried theme.   80 artists are too much and lends itself to mediocrity.

At Blogfinger we have long complained that events in town should be mostly for the residents of the Grove and not to satisfy some outside entities such as the Chamber of Commercials or even the Arts Center which has different priorities than creating events to satisfy “We the People” of the Grove whose lifestyles are at stake and who need to be in charge of such events.

Take Bradley Beach for example.  Below is a photo of a recent live concert this past May planned for the Bradsters.

Don’t you think that events for  residents, families and guests like this one in BB  are a good idea?   They don’t need guidance as we do from the Chamber of Confusion which brings tourists, street closures and money  instead of good will and improved quality  of life for our citizens.  What are their motives?

And do we need more events where buying and selling is a featured goal?     Notice that the JSAC email above mentions “browsing and shopping.”  The ads for the “Art on the Porch”  don’t mention that art will be for sale,  and no one ever mentioned that goal during the first two  “Art on the Porch” events. Did  the original Grovers who first came up with this fine idea envision a marketplace for art?    If so, it was never mentioned to me, but some artists did that anyhow.

I guess buying and selling art is definitely a feature now.   My photographs will be for sale, because people evidently  expect that, but just a defined  gallery theme would have been better.  Is this commercial feature understood by everyone involved?   I enjoyed the social side of the first two porch events  and I got to talk to photographers.  Making money was not on my mind. I sold one photo last year as a favor.

Here is a photo and a link about this subject. from Ocean Grove 2008.

This 2008 art show was held in Founders’ Park, and it was lovely. Paul Goldfinger photo.   See the link below:

Art in the park

And in 2020 I attended a jazz concert held in Asbury Park, and it was wonderful and was designed for the Asburians to enjoy live local musicians in one of their parks.  No mommy or daddy to make arrangements for them to enjoy their town. It was a fundraiser for a local charity.

Asbury jazz in the park for their citizens

OG needs an organization which should be for the people and by the people. What we have now is off the mark.

Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net

THE DUM DUM GIRLS:

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My friend “Buddy”  and his prom date Georgene. 1959. He was the football quarterback and was in  every musical activity along with me. He went to West Point.

Bill Hutzel was the band director who changed the lives of so many of us at Rutherford High where most students were in music activities.  He taught me syncopation–a gift.

We were four close friends. Ross is in the trumpet section of the Rutherfordians dance band. I am in the front on alto sax (white mouthpiece) Ross became a judge.

Paul Goldfinger, MD     Editor Blogfinger.net

When we were kids my Dad used to take movies with a primitive 8 mm movie camera. We kept those negatives for many years in our basement, and we had long lost the projector to view them.   Recently we sent some of them to Legacybox, a company that converts media from one format to another.

We had ours made into DVD’s. We had no idea what to expect. Much of those movies were repetitive, but there were moments sufficient to elicit powerful emotions, recognitions, laughter and tears.

I had a set made for my brother and one for us.    The DVD’s could be popped into a DVD player and  set to play on our TV or into my computer using an Apple USB Super Drive.

It turns out that my Dad was a poor photographer, chopping off heads, moving too fast from one subject to another or up to the sky or down to our shoes.

Of course, there was no sound, and that really robbed the moments of an important component.  And he moved so fast, you couldn’t study much of the material.   But the worst part was the poor quality of the images. I guess there was some deterioration over the years.

The typical 8 mm movie of that time was where the subjects walk towards the camera, smile and wave; or, as with my brother,  he was always mugging, making faces and blowing his trombone.  He was and still is a character. And my mother, another character,  would dance around and mug.

I tried an experiment to produce still photographs from the movies on my computer screen by photographing rare compelling moments, just as a still photographer (like me) does routinely.  It is  needed because watching those movie clips showed everything going by too fast.

The challenge is to capture decisive moments, a la Cartier-Bresson.  It requires patience as you must get the exposure and focus right, and the light keeps changing in those videos, and then you must go back and then forward multiple times.  Then you have to do some fiddling around with the photo software.

And yet, it was strikingly profound to see these scenes from over 50 years ago; many of the cast of characters are now gone.  My Dad took scenes of my brother and me marching in parades, playing in concerts, and cavorting with family and friends.

My Dad had no interest in sports, so there are no movies of me playing soccer, tennis, football and basketball. Not once. But one thing he did was to take some clips at our senior prom and of the Rutherford High School marching and dance bands.

Some of the material was profoundly emotional, and I need to view them over to understand how such distant moving moments, some of which were fairly mundane, can have such impact now.

I was absolutely floored when I saw  my friends  with our beautiful dates.    We all looked profoundly happy that night at the Rutherford High School Senior Prom.  My friends and I all went with Junior girls.

The memories came flooding back:  rented tuxedos, flowers in our lapels, gowns, crinolines, cars,  and corsages, but mostly the laughter, the wonder of it all— and the music.

I am in the process of sending some samples to my friends from that time.  The results are pretty good, but all things considered, it is miraculous to have them—the content and not the quality are what counts. I am posting some samples now and more  later.

My friend Jeff with Janie. He drove me into “the City” on the back of his motor scooter. We went to “The Village” to hear jazz.      Janie  had parties in her basement; lights out time. Janie became a lawyer. Jeff a banker.

Charlie played sax in the dance band and sat next to me. He played football. Here he fills in on tuba. He became a very successful engineer selling giant pumps to the Chinese.

RHS Marching Band. Memorial Day Parade, 1959. Ah! Those beautiful girls. Sweet music.

I hope to post more of these photos as I take my time unearthing them from the shadows of time.  I will show up when I can find a decent shot.

And so will Carla my prom date, Eileen, Bro’ Mel and others who were part of my life, including more fun at the prom and in the band.

EMMY ROSSUM:

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Paul Goldfinger photo. OG boards. 2026. Blogfinger.net.  Click once to enlarge these girls in their summer clothes.

JOHN COLTRANE:     “Central Park West”.  From the Village Gate album

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Nagle’s Friday night: 6/19/26, Click once to enlarge. Paul Goldfinger photo. Blogfinger.net A beautiful Friday  night in Ocean Grove. NJ, USA.

Nagle’s. Paul Goldfinger image. 6/19/2026, Click once.

Street photos at Nagle’s. Friday night. Paul Goldfinger photo.  Leica. M10 M  6/19/26. The ladies who lurch.

Nagle’s. Paul Goldfinger 6/19/26. Bikers do wheelies at Nagle’s

Trying to emulate the live music of Nagle’s of old.     But the music is pathetic and boring.  Bring back the ’50’s and Broadway. It was enough to put Mr. Sandman asleep. More photos to come.

The Marvelous Wonderettes:

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Ocean Grove boards. Click once to enlarge. 6/19/26. Friday twilight.  Paul Goldfinger photo.  Click once to enlarge.

“Rent me” on Ocean Avenue. Paul Goldfinger. 6/19/26

Paul Goldfinger 6/19/26

OG. 6/19/26. Paul Goldfinger.

As she rode by she said something about “breaking” my camera.”

More to come later from this shoot.

“William Tell Overture”.  from A Clockwork Orange.

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10/31/25   ” Trick or treat” on Mt. Hermon Way in Ocean Grove, NJ, USA.     Photo by Paul Goldfinger. Blogfinger.net. 10/31/25. Click once to enlarge the special moment.  Send us your interpretation of this image.

GENE WILDER.* From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. From the original soundtrack.

“Pure Imagination.”

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