I don’t have any new facts, just photos. For the full story, see the LancasterOnline article.

Everyone is free to use these photos for any purpose, and no need to ask me for permission or give me credit.

Garrett Faber at the Keppel Building

The show I absolutely had to get to was Garrett Faber’s show of photographs. It was on the fourth floor of the Keppel Building, little publicized, but amazing. The guy is a visionary. An extremely talented, incredibly humble visionary.

I arrived a little after six and he was still hanging photos with his friends. There were hundreds of them–digital photos printed then cut to look like Polaroids.

You know all those hipstamatic and instagram photos you wish people would stop sharing? Garrett Faber’s photos are the excellence those photos knock off.

I’ve been following Garrett online for years now, but this was the first time I had a chance to meet him and see his work in person. Seriously, this guy is an artist not to be missed.

Creative Reuse and Hodge Podgery at the Stahr Center

In the Stahr Center, I finally had the chance to peek in at Lancaster Creative Reuse. It wasn’t at all what I expected. Instead of chaotic piles of large objects, the shop is an intricately-organized presentation of highly useful arts and crafts supplies.

November 5th also marked the opening of a satellite location in the Stahr Center for the Harrisburg shop Hodge Podgery. They’re referring to the Lancaster shop as HoPoLanCo.

New Play Readings at the Fulton Clubhouse

The final highlight of my First Friday night out was a set of readings of four new plays by members of the Lancaster Dramatists’ Platform. It was the first time Creative Works of Lancaster (I guard their bank account, as treasurer) sponsored the event, which is held on a near-monthly basis. The plays were great, and it’s awesome to be a part of theater when it’s at this raw and early of a stage. The readings largely give the playwrights an opportunity to see how actors and audience respond to their new work, so they can make revisions.

A lot going on in Lancaster in the artistic underground!

Here are some photos of the color that has emerged and that we’re enjoying today.

Asiatic Dayflower, officially dismissed as an invasive weed

The entire flower of the Asiatic Dayflower is just larger than my thumbnail

As a plant, the Asiatic Dayflower reaches one to three feet in height

A beautiful blue wildflower

An orange chrysanthemum

The orange boom of a chrysanthemum

Orange petals on a chrysanthemum

A yellow chrysanthemum

A delicate white wildflower

Tiny white wildflower

Another wildflower from our backyard flower bed

Yellow summer squash growing quickly

Thanks for allowing me to share some of the natural beauty of our Lancaster backyard!

I’ve been wanting to go minimalist for a long time, and now I’m finally making the shift.

With this new design, the focus will be on the words I write, which is the ultimate reason for this blog to exist, and I believe is the main reason you visit.

I’m making a few other changes along with the shift to a new design. The biggest is that I will be moving the “Lancaster Twitterati” list to another website entirely. More on that as things progress.

In the meantime, if you have trouble finding what you’re looking for, or find broken links or missing photos, please know that I appreciate your patience and your support of this blog.

This is the nineteenth in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that photographing or videoing local art galleries, performances, and businesses is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about sharing certain photos, staying in touch with your legislators, and connecting with people different from you.

If you follow links to books from this blog, you’ll notice they take you to IndieBound, not Amazon. That’s a suggestion I got from Aaron’s Books in Lititz.

My favorite example of a big site that lets you shop local, though, is Etsy.

It’s so easy that I could make this resolution entry one line: Shop local on Etsy.

Etsy is extraordinary even just for browsing. Everything is handmade, and there is no shortage of ideas of things that can be beautifully made by hand—knit scarves (or just the hand-spun yarn), jewelry, business card holders, framed art, clothing, furniture, dolls.

If you search the local section for Lancaster, PA, you’ll find no fewer than one hundred shops, including the inspired jewelry of Mio Studio, drawings by Dan McEwen in Drawing Blanks, and the yarny things of KnittyDirtyGirl. Other Etsyists, please share a link to your shop in the comments below.

What I love most about Etsy’s shop local function is that it gives me all the convenience of shopping online with the satisfaction that I’m supporting local talent.

This is the eighteenth in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that photographing or videoing local art galleries, performances, and businesses is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about staying in touch with your legislators, connecting with people different from you, and taking regular breaks from digital media.

We live in an area rich in the visual and performing arts, as well as bustling with business. It’s hard to capture instances of that in words. Photos and videos help.

Three instances of photos and video at work

This past April the Lancaster Museum of Art presented an extraordinary exhibit of portraits by illustrator Barry Moser. I knew of his work, and asked if I could sneak in before opening night to snap a few photos of the exhibit and get enough information to write a blog entry about it. The curators were thrilled to show me around. These sorts of things deserve attention, and they don’t get enough. I’m really glad I took photos of that exhibit (limited as they are) and shared it here on my blog.

Derek Lau recently shot a video at Progressive Galleries of Isaac Gillespie performing a song he wrote in memory of our friend Ben Carr, who drowned in September 2007. That video has already meant a lot to the many people who still grieve at our loss of Ben. It’s also a great capture of a musician’s talent as he performed in Lancaster.

If you look up Rachel’s Cafe on Google, you’ll find photos pulled from Urban Spoon, including one of the menu. What you won’t find (yet) are any photos of the restaurant itself, from either the inside or the outside. I’ll return to the subject of writing restaurant reviews in an upcoming entry, but for now the point is that sharing photos of businesses is a way of providing useful information to others.

The resolution

So, my recommended resolution for today: Take photos and shoot video. Then share them. Use what you’ve captured to let other people know about what they might otherwise miss in your community.

Of course, be sure to ask permission when dealing with works protected under copyright (like stage performances and the art in galleries). People are usually happy for the publicity.

If you’re taking photos of a restaurant, Urban Spoon and Yelp are great places to upload them. If you’re taking photos of an event or of another sort of business, you can’t go wrong uploading them to the Facebook event or page—and the same goes for video.

Don’t forget Google, or your own business

Business owners—be sure that you have claimed your listing in the Google Local Business Center. When you do so, you will have the opportunity to upload up to 10 photos. Do it. Include shots of the exterior of your business (so people can find it more easily) and the inside, too (so people know what to expect).

Where else would you recommend for sharing photos and videos of performances, galleries, restaurants, and businesses?

This is the eighth in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that writing reviews of works and events produced by local artists is a great way to help others from behind the comfort of your keyboard. This series has included recent posts about making a list on Twitter, explaining your position on an issue, and making a habit of giving online.

At least, in the sloppy, mean sense. We all tear down things we’re ignorant about. It’s a problem.

But today, everyone has the opportunity to be a critic in the difficult, helpful sense. You can review a work of art with care, looking at it with a critical mind, rather than a critical disposition. You can blog, write a review on any number of sites, record a podcast, make a video, or use whatever other medium suits your fancy. The important thing is that the medium isn’t the problem. It’s no longer a barrier keeping everyone but paid columnists out.

At least, that’s one important thing. The other important thing is that while the medium isn’t hard, the work still is. I can spout off and criticize Ikea (as I have done before on Twitter), and I take flak for it and no one really cares. That’s because playing the critic doesn’t mean simply saying what you think about something. It means explaining how you understand something in a way that others can themselves understand and appreciate. It means communicating in such a way that people don’t shut their eyes and ears to you because you’ve made them so disgruntled right off the bat.

I took a stab at being this sort of critic last April when I reviewed the 2009 Rumschpringe Film Festival, which is held here in Lancaster. I caught some flak for it, online and off, but the dominant reaction by far was appreciation—enough that the event’s organizer, Michael Hoober, was happy to accept an invitation to come on the podcast I co-host to talk about this year’s Rumschpringe in this week’s episode.

I also wrote public reviews of Progressive Galleries when they opened downtown and of the Barry Moser exhibit at the Lancaster Museum of Art. When I write such reviews, here are some of the objectives I have in my mind:

1. Explain the event, work of art, or exhibit in such a way that people who wouldn’t easily “get it” can appreciate it. Remember all those “appreciation” classes in school? Poetry appreciation, art appreciation, music appreciation, and so on? The world of art is so fluid and fast-changing that few people have the ability to appreciate most new works of art. We miss out a lot of good art because we throw up our hands and say, “I don’t get it!” I’m with Nicholas Woltersdorff when he says that the primary role of the critic in today’s world is not to review but rather to explain.
2. Entice others to experience it for themselves. I try to avoid the pitfall of thinking I have some sort of moral responsibility to keep people from experiencing a work of art for themselves. Sometimes I can’t help it (as in when I encourage you not to see Dogville, not to read Glamorama, not to shopt at Wal-Mart, not to follow the Elements of Style, and not to refer to Eats, Shoots, and Leaves). But overall, I think it’s best, especially when it comes to the local arts scene, to encourage others to check it out for themselves so that a real conversation can take place.
3. Treat it like it’s the real deal. One of my hopes for my review of last year’s Rumschpringe film festival was that my taking it seriously as a critic would encourage others to begin or to continue to take it seriously as participants, organizers, and viewers. Real works of art get reviewed, and real artists who produce work for the public submit themselves to the public’s response.
4. When assessing, include the good with the bad. I think some of the best feedback you can give as a critic of local art is to say what you would like to see more of and what you would like to see less of.  It’s helpful to artists and to event/exhibit organizers to hear feedback like, “This part was great, so keep focusing on it, while this part was hurting, so improve or ditch it in the future.”
5. Put it in context. Think about what you’re reviewing in terms of its setting in place and time. What significance do you see in the fact that it exists at this point in history rather than earlier or later? What does it matter that it took place in Lancaster rather than Philadelphia, L.A., or Guadalupe?

Think about what art you’re planning to take in this year and consider whether you might be able to elevate our community’s discourse about the arts by playing the critic. What objectives will you have in mind when you do?

Working on the North Museum ad campaign with Donna, Kristin, and Megan

Though I’ve only participated twice now, the annual Design-O-Rama-Thon has become one of my favorite Lancaster institutions. Last year Chet and I wrote brochure text and donor letters for House of His Creation in Gap. Other nonprofits that benefited were the American Cancer Society, HOPE Global Investment Fund, The Janus School, the Susquehanna Foundation for the Blind, and Team PA Foundation.

This year, I worked with Lancaster freelance designer Donna Lindsey, Harrisburg graphic designer Kristin Sabadish, and Moxie House’s Megan Caruso on print advertisements and posters for the North Museum’s spring Science and Engineering Fair. The research, made possible by Russell Frost’s photographs at the most recent fair, was fun and full of surprises.

Other organizations that got great marketing work at no cost this year included Clare House, the Threshold Foundation, Junior Achievement of Central PA, Lancaster Young Professionals, and American Home Life International.

I’d like to add my thanks to Kitchen Kettle Village, Isaac’s, Lancaster Brewing Company, and Samantha Seifried for keeping me and the rest of the DORTers fed and refreshed!

1. Download Deep Tracks of Christmas Music

You need these tracks. The links point to iTunes. For links pointing to Amazon, check out my fuller list of Christmas music from last year.

• Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy), Duke Ellington – Sensual, imaginative, and classy. Hands down the best Christmas jazz track I’ve ever found.
• 

  Word>>>Flesh, feat. Katie Becker

  Shepherd’s Song, Katie Becker – Born right here in Lancaster County. This list is showing my predisposition toward “beautiful and haunting.”

• Old Waits Carol, Kate & Anne McGarrigle – Dark and haunting, not your typical Christmas jingle. Harkens back to a time when winter was much more deadly, and Christmas was an occasion to take heart, despite the fact that “today you may be alive and well… tomorrow dead and cold as clay.”
• Figlio Dello Ande, Al Bano Carrisi – Italian, vocals with guitar, flute, and drums. One of the joys of Christmas is experiencing the traditions of other cultures. This is one of the more beautiful foreign-language songs in my Christmas collection.
• Carol of the Beasts, Pete Seeger – Banjo and Seeger’s voice. A wonderful traditional folk song that may have been tragically lost if not for Seeger’s preservation efforts.
• All the King’s Horns, Sufjan Stevens – Banjo and Sufjan’s voice (and some other voices and instruments, too). Sufjan’s five-EP Christmas collection has become a treasure to me. As with Seeger’s album, it’s barn music.
• Undrentide, Mediæval Baebes – Along with the joy of experiencing Christmas with other cultures is experiencing Christmas with other points in history. There are many great Christmas songs from the Middle Ages. This is among my favorites. (Another great artists in this vein is Andrew Parrott.)
• All My Heart This Night Rejoices, J.G. Ebeling  If you enjoy traditional church hymns, this is an overlooked one that merits revisiting. This version is from the Cambridge Singers.

2. Spice Up Your Christmas Letter with Holiday Fonts

From the classy to the obnoxious, there are excellent (and free!) Christmas typefaces on Dafont.com, including dingbats, like this one from ChristmasTime:

3. Watch Classic Scenes from TV Specials

I’m thinking specifically of the final 30 seconds of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street:

Or, for that matter, the cinematic comedic genius of the segment from 7:15 to 8:35 of the same special:

And then there’s Quasimodo conducting The Carol of the Bells:

A Garfield Minus Garfield version of Garfield’s Christmas Special:

4. Decorate Your Desktop

• Holiday Lights – Here’s how you do it so it looks tacky but tolerable: Put holly in the top two corners, nothing along the bottom, and mini bulbs plus 32-pixel spacers along the sides and top. Then set the flashing to “random” and turn off the screen saver.
• Christmas Wallpaper
• Sign up to receive e-mails from The Church of England’s Advent Calendar. Their intro video encourages us to purchase fair-trade gifts this year.

The event is being hosted by the college’s student radio station, WFNM. MacKaye was the frontman of influential punk bands The Fugazi, Minor Threat, and The Evens. He is also something of a figurehead for the so-called Straight Edge movement within the punk subculture.

The event will be in the 500-seat Barshinger Center for Music. The suggested donation is $5.