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Modern Ocean Grove history. 2022. The CMA roars ahead with more religious programming while secular life in the Grove further declines….

July 13, 2026 by Blogfinger

7/24/22. 9:40 am. Religious service in the Pavilion. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click to clearly see what is going on.

 

This man, a church representative, is standing on the public thoroughfare. (the boardwalk). He is soliciting people walking by to take a program and come into the Pavilion church service. This moment is symbolic of what is going on lately in Ocean Grove.

 

PAUL GOLDFINGER, MD.   Editor Blogfinger.net.  2022

For newcomers to OG, they see only what they see…..they have no sense of how the OG culture is evolving.  The CMA has shifted into high gear lately as they try to create a “Christian Seaside Community,”   The balance between secular and religious life is undoubtedly shifting.

Here are two examples:

 

A happy Doo-Wop Saturday night crowd in the GA. c. 2017. Paul Goldfinger photo.

 

Out-of-towners enjoying a Doo Wops. concert.  Blogfinger photo.

 

Elimination of Saturday night shows in the Great Auditorium:    The summer Saturday night secular programs in the  GA. were a big hit for years. There were thousands who came to enjoy acts like Tony Bennett,  Neil Sedaka, ABBA, Frank Sinatra, Jr., the Beachboys, and others.

These shows promoted happiness for locals and visitors, but evidently they didn’t fit into the long term plans of the CMA despite the good will generated.

We are currently witnessing an explosion of religious programming in the Grove, whereas secular morale builders are being drowned out.   Saturday nights are now all about Christian entertainment, and that programming spills over to Sunday and envelopes the town  in a big way.

We inquired about the cancellation of the Saturday secular shows and we were told that it was too expensive to hire the big-time acts which people preferred.  But the CMA could have raised the price of tickets, as they have successfully done at the Count Basie in Red Bank.

Now we are witnessing why the CMA wanted Saturday night back.

Grovers are seemingly  not concerned with more balance of secular and religious.  They  just go into A. Park for amusement.

 

2002. Yoga on the OG beach. No problem then. PG photo.  Totally secular activity.  PG photo.

 

Yoga on the OG boards 2020. The class sets up at the rear–in no one’s way. Paul Goldfinger. photo. Click to enlarge.

 

Second:  As another example, we used to have yoga on the boards and on the beach, and there were no complaints.   One of the yoga teachers, a senior citizen from OG who has been popular here for 17 years,  worked with small groups and was careful not to block anyone’s access to the “public thoroughfare” on the boards is now experiencing pressure from the CMA to stop his yoga activities.

Now the CMA wants to teach “Christian Yoga” on the boards and wants to force the the regular guy out. Can you teach Christian yoga on a public thoroughfare?  What is happening to separation of church and state in OG public places?

So keep your eyes open for culture shifts in our town.  Especially watch the CMA as they implement their expanded religious programs and as they slowly replace or force out secular institutions,  thus allowing  the balance to shift in one direction.

 

THE DUBS:

 

 

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Guest photographer: Constantine Manos. This magic moment…

July 12, 2026 by Blogfinger

Photo by Constantine Manos.  Scanned original image. Special to Blogfinger.net.  From the artist at the Maine Photographic Workshop.  Click to enlarge.

 

 

Constantine Manos: Typical of his color photography. Internet photo. Click to enlarge.

 

By Paul Goldfinger, MD.    Editor Blogfinger.net. 2025 re-post. Blogfinger.net.

 

Constantine Manos, a Greek-American photographer,  (1934-2025)    had achieved wide fame for his striking color images..  He had been the official photographer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was widely published. In the States he lived in Boston and he often worked in Greece.  He also was a member of the famed photojournalism group Magnum.

I met him at the Maine Summer  Photographic Workshops when he was offering  a course called “This Magic Moment.”  He would send his students on photo assignments and then bring them back for discussions.    At the end of the course, he would put on a slide show of all his students’ work in front of others, such as myself,  there for other courses.  During the slide show he would play that song.

I liked his work because of his  brilliant and exciting use of color.

My reason for being there was to study black and white photography,  but they had classes in all sorts of aspects, and many famous photographers were in attendance.

After his show, he offered some prints for sale,  so I bought one and then hung it on the wall in my darkroom. It is the image on top.   I chose this one because it is so typical of Manos’ work.

Fast forward to now; I am beginning to revisit my color film  work in an effort to digitize old Kodachrome slides. So  turning on the lights in my home  darkroom which will become a digital lab I rediscovered the image on top above.

It looks like Mexico, but I am unsure.   Lately I am once again specializing in black and white, but if I were to shoot color once again, Manos’    high contrast, high color intensity style would suit me.

The idea of a “magic moment” is nothing new in photography.   Cartier-Bresson made “the decisive moment” famous.

 

Editor’s note:   1/3/25.  Constantine Manos dies.  He lived in Provincetown, Mass. and had a long career as a photojournalist, artist, and teacher.  Everyone called him, “Costa.”

 

THE DRIFTERS.

 

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Alfred Stieglitz—pioneer of American art photography

July 12, 2026 by Blogfinger

"The Hand of Man" (1902) by Alfred Stieglitz.

“The Hand of Man” (1902) by Alfred Stieglitz.  Click to enlarge.

Paul Goldfinger, Photography Editor @Blogfinger.

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was born in Hoboken of a German-Jewish immigrant family.   He first trained as an engineer, but later he discovered photography.   After the turn of the century he moved to New York City where he began an illustrious career as a fine art photographer and gallery owner.  He led the photo-secessionist movement which was about promoting photography as a fine art.  He also introduced America to many European impressionist painters.

Stieglitz published the first fine art photography journal called Camera Work which existed from 1903-1917.  All the images in Camera Work were made with an exquisitely beautiful method called photogravure which utilized etched copper plates to make the prints.

Stieglitz had his gallery in New York City. It was called Gallery 291.  Stieglitz was also the husband of the painter Georgia O’Keefe who posed for many nude studies by her spouse.

One of my favorite Stieglitz Camera Work images is a photogravure called “The Hand of Man” taken (see above)  in the the New York Central Railroad Yards.  It is one of only two known train photographs by Stieglitz. I have a copy of the other which is quite similar and is called “In the Central Railroad Yards (1910.)”

In the process of convincing the world that photography was a full-fledged art form, he often gave his images names that may seem somewhat pretentious  such as the title of our featured photograph.  Another of his photographs, a NYC skyline, was called, “The City of Ambition.”

Below are some samples of the kind of critical analyses which are often brought to bear for works titled this way.  Personally I think these sorts of images, as gorgeous as they may be, should not be given titles.  Better to let the viewer form an opinion.

From the Museum of Modern Art in NYC:       “The Hand of Man was first published in January 1903 in the inaugural issue of Camera Work. With this image of a lone locomotive chugging through the train yards of Long Island City, Stieglitz showed that a gritty urban landscape could have an atmospheric beauty and a symbolic value as potent as those of an unspoiled natural landscape. The title alludes to this modern transformation of the landscape and also perhaps to photography itself as a mechanical process. Stieglitz believed that a camera could be transformed into a tool for creating art when guided by the hand and sensibility of an artist.”

From the Pratt Institute of Art and Design:    “The title serves a dual purpose, both serving as a commentary on the idea of the hand of the photographer and his ability to depict this modern world in such a fashion, but also more figuratively man’s footprint on the landscape and how humans have transformed their surroundings.”

And finally, this is what Alfred Stieglitz himself said about photography as art,  “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”   I believe him.

FATS WALLER:  So if art appreciation is about the pursuit of reality, here is  Fats Waller with:  “Until the Real Thing Comes Along.”

 

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A poet appreciates a photograph….

July 12, 2026 by Blogfinger

 

Photograph  by Paul Goldfinger. Wesley Lake as seen from the Asbury side, revealing OG.  2024.

 

By Poet  Igor Timkovsky:

 

Peace by the lake…

 

Tranquility of the lake.

From vanity take a break.

Just look at it. Treat your eye.

Don’t ask yourself what and why.

 

Yo-Yo Ma and Friends.   “Kuai Le.”   Songs of Joy and Peace

 

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“Can I come over tonight?”

July 11, 2026 by Blogfinger

A passionate request…Paul Goldfinger photograph. OG North End.

 

THE VELOURS:

 

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Eileen’s July OG garden

July 11, 2026 by Blogfinger

Asian lillies bloom in Ocean Grove, late afternoon. Blogfinger photo. 7/26.

 

The Uri Caine Ensemble:

 

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Babies in our backyard

July 11, 2026 by Blogfinger

A family of cardinals visit us regularly. This male feeds a baby. Paul Goldfinger photo. © Click to enlarge.

Ocean Grove.   7/19/15.  A family of cardinals visits us regularly. Flying lessons and delicious regurgitated food.   This male feeds a baby. Paul Goldfinger photo. © Click to enlarge.

SOPHIE MILMAN

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Bob Bowné: “Caught this 1940’s ? Plymouth woody on Embury yesterday evening. Pretty sweet!!”

July 11, 2026 by Blogfinger

Ocean Grove. By Bob Bowné © The vintage car show was in town

Parking in the Grove. By Bob Bowné © The vintage car show was in town. 2014.  Some say it’s a Pontiac.   Re-post.

 

PATSY CLINE.    From the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”

 

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Lost in the Stars — A Reverie

July 10, 2026 by Blogfinger

The Milky Way. Photo from the Internet

 

Re-post from 2012.  Charles Layton was a member of the Blogfinger staff when he wrote this marvelous piece. Charles now lives in Philadelphia.  He is a professional editor from the Philadelphia Inquirer, now retired.

 

By Charles Layton

A few years ago we lived for three weeks in Nicaragua, in a house at the edge of a small, very remote fishing village called Casares. It was a spectacular place. Instead of shooshing and murmuring, as they mostly do in Ocean Grove, the waves on that shore towered and crashed and sucked and splattered and spat. They were never subdued.

From our porch, looking out on the Pacific Ocean, we watched pelicans dive bombing for fish. Each afternoon huge flocks – a hundred or more at a time – would fly right past us, headed for their nesting grounds.

But even better was the sky at night. After all the meager lights in that little town went dark, the sky became a light show of blazing stars and star clusters, plunging meteors, wandering planets. Sometimes, very late, when the call of nature roused me from bed, I would walk out on the patio alone and stare and stare at the universe, and especially at the Milky Way, wheeling above me. Stars by the thousands, unbelievably distinct and clear.

In Ocean Grove, on most nights, you can actually count the number of visible stars. Often it’s no more than a dozen. Sometimes it’s none. Living under a permanent scrim of light pollution, we forget how many stars are out there. Many of us have never actually seen the night sky in its true state – as I saw it on the coast of Nicaragua, and as our ancestors knew it.

In a couple of weeks we’ll hear jokes about the Mayan calendar coming to an end, and how that will be the destruction of the earth and all mankind. No need to do your Christmas shopping or pay your taxes now, our doom is written in the stars; har har. What idiots, those Mayans.

But really, the Mayans and all ancient peoples lived their lives in constant communion with the teeming, moving lights in the natural sky. The ancient peoples had no idea what those lights were. They noted that the lights moved in strange ways. Sometimes one could be seen to streak and fall out of the sky. Sometimes a comet would appear, ominously hovering. (What did that portent? Something important, right?) The night sky was those people’s television, fraught with drama and bad news.

The constellation Orion. The three middle stars are his belt

Religions arose to explain all those moving lights. Stories were told. People saw pictures in the sky – a lion, a crab, a hunter named Orion holding a bow in one hand and a club in the other. Because the planets moved independently of the rest of the turning firmament, the ancients associated those special lights with gods – Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

But because the sky was so brilliant, prominent, ever-present and mysterious, ancient people studied it methodically. They built observatories and took and recorded measurements. They found that the heavenly bodies displayed repeating patterns which, when plotted, yielded information useful to hunters, farmers, nomads and sailors. Astrologers tried to discern when “the stars were right” for planting or marrying or doing business or giving birth.

The Bible says the “wise men” (men who understood signs in the sky) were guided to Bethlehem by a star. If such a beckoning star rose in the sky now, I doubt we’d even see it — unless JCP&L suffered a major blackout.

Hurricane Sandy taught us the value of electricity, and I’m happy to have the power back on; I would never want to do without it. Still, it’s not a trivial thing, our loss of that ancient awareness of the richness of the sky.

 

 

BILLIE HOLIDAY  (this song added on 4/23/21):

 

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Seaside horses and a Brazilian cool-jazz back-ground.

July 10, 2026 by Blogfinger

Seaside Heights. October, 2015. Paul Goldfinger photo.  Blogfinger.net

 

Below a scene from Mighty Aphrodite.   Paul Desmond’s music was featured.   And speaking of the Greek Goddess of Love, today is Eileen Goldfinger’s birthday.  Happy Birthday kid!

 

 

When I was a high school and college musician, I played a French made Selmer alto sax, as did Desmond.

Paul Desmond was my musical hero. I always tried to emulate  his “cool” style.  It was a sweet sound which touched me for its floating-in-air quality.

 

Paul Desmond. The search for a perfect reed is the bane of a sax man’s life. Internet photo. Reed sentiment is mine: PG

He was not only a performer with the Dave  Brubeck group, but he was a jazz composer  as well, and his “Take Five” was the first jazz song to sell a million copies.  Paul Desmond’s sound   provided a special flavor for the Dave Brubeck Quartet and was widely emulated  by jazz musicians like me as a member of the Fairleigh Dickinson University  Jazz Band and leader of the Paul Gary Quartet. (seen below on a Selmer tenor sax)

 

Bunny, I, Charlie (bass) and Frank (drums) warming up in Frank’s basement in Rutherford. We were college kids. Bunny and I were from FDU while Frank went to Seton Hall. Charlie was a precocious high school senior whose girlfriend was our groupie. Bunny rarely sang, but when she did, it was “Willow Weep for Me.” (We weeped for her singing.) Bunny was so slim that she could play between the white keys. Wallpaper compliments of Frank’s Mom. There are no recordings of our group.

Desmond’s remarkable tempo style  was featured in Woody’s 1995 film “Mighty Aphrodite.”

The song below, “Romance de Amor,”  is a Brazilian composition by Paul. It is from the album Skylark.

Paul Desmond drank and smoked heavily.  He died at 52 of cancer.

 

Romance de Amor. (Love Song). Written by Paul Desmond.

 

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For all we know we may never meet again…..”carpe diem”

July 10, 2026 by Blogfinger

A churchyard in France—the last rose of summer. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Paul Goldfinger photo. Click once to enlarge.

 

By Charles Layton,  Editor   (former) @Blogfinger. net.      Re-post 

 

Good morning, class. Today we’ll study the poetic tradition known as carpe diem, which means “seize the day.”  It’s a phrase from the Roman poet Horace, who felt that life is short and unpredictable so let’s bring and make love and party on.

The poet Robert Herrick was in this tradition when he wrote his poem “To the Virgins, to Make much of Time.”  Its most famous line is  Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. But it’s not about gardening.

Here is an American popular song in the carpe diem tradition. It’s been recorded by Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Wynton Marsalis. Johnny Hartman sang it on the soundtrack to the movie The Bridges of Madison County. I especially like the concluding lines:

For all we know this may only be a dream.
We come and go like the ripples in a stream.
So love me tonight tomorrow was made for some,
Tomorrow may never come for all we know.

JOHNNY HARTMAN.   From The Bridges of Madison County

 

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Wesley Lake: 1905

July 9, 2026 by Blogfinger

Wesley Lake postcard 1905.    Blogfinger.net post.   Click to enlarge.

 

K.D. LANG:

Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Postcards From Ocean Grove | Tagged | 2 Comments »

Asbury Park Distilling Co.— a highlight in our neighborhood in 2024, and then a flood hit in July 2026. Latest update.

July 9, 2026 by Blogfinger

Kelly Lynch, Master Distiller. Paul Goldfinger photo  4/11/24. Asbury Park, NJ, USA. Click once to enlarge.  Blogfinger.net. Ocean Grove NJ

 

By Paul Goldfinger, MD.  Blogfinger.net.  Ocean Grove, NJ, USA.  We are sister cities with A. Park,  despite what the Tri-City News says.

 

I was over in A. Park, across the Jersey Avenue bridge in Ocean Grove, to make sure the Bierhalle* was still intact after recent flooding 2024.

While I was there, I  noticed a young woman near some large doors pushing a heavy cart filled with wooden barrels.  I walked over and when I peeked inside the doors, I saw a fascinating place: the Asbury Park Distilling Co.  It looked like the home of a mad scientist.

She invited me in to take a photo (see above).   It turns out that she is no ordinary shlepper:  She is Kelly Lynch, Master Distiller.

The Asbury Park Distilling Co. is the first and only distillery in Asbury, since Prohibition.  They make high class beverages:  bourbon, gin, and vodka, as well as other products.

Tours are available.

Their icon is a mermaid.

 

*ADDENDUM:  The” Bierhalle,” a familiar landmark when coming across the Jersey Ave. bridge, and next door to the Asbury Distillery, has been closed for sometime.  It is expected that it will reopen, but there are issues having to do with structural concerns and subterranean integrity.  Work is currently being done and difficulty acquiring insurance due to recurrent flooding.  It is very popular in-season, especially up at the roof bar where they have had  live music.

Here is a Blogfinger Bierhalle link 2015:

 

Asbury BIERHALLE report from Blogfinger 2015

 

Bierhalle. Paul Goldfinger photo. 4/11/24. Click to enlarge.

 

2025 update:  The Bierhalle is now permanently closed.  The Asbury Distillery is open and has live music on Sundays.

2026 update a flood hits 7/6/26.  SEE VIDEO BELOW:

 

7/9/2026.  An Asbury source sent us this 7/6/26 video, undoubtedly by a drone.   The tell us that the flood of Wesley Lake receded quickly oh both sides.  On the Grovarian side, we were left with a swamp of plastic bottles and garbage dredged up from the bottom. No surprise to Grovers.  Our Asburian friends point to the Grove and wonder why lakeside home owners don’t do a better job policing our shores

Interestingly the Bierhalle property which was considered to be hopelessly vulnerable to flood damage has been bought by owners who plan a steak house at the site and who have placed a metal barrier to protect the lower structural areas from flood damage, and it did that during the major flooding two days ago.

 

 

 

BEE GEES

 

 

 

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