Shapenote

ArE yOu A ShApE-nOtE sInGeR aNd JUST DON`T KNOW????
So you been bindin` up the corn sheaves since sun-up and are feelin` mighty blessed to have your labors yield such a heavy fall harvest. Now it`s time to let your joys be known! There`s a gathering on a porch, in a church, in a courthouse, in a schoolhouse, and the rest of the town is all geared up for some full voiced, no-nonsense unaccompanied singing. And they are singing SHAPE-NOTE. Shape-note singing is among the oldest continually sung bodies of original American music. It has carried the spirit and the music of early American life through centuries because of its beauty, its POWER and its accessibility. It is music for the people, by the people, music written to be thrilling to sing. It is music with a sound and a sentiment from a different time, but it has been found relevant by each new generation because of its relative simplicity, its sincere force, its challenge to us to sing directly and fearlessly to the ideas of death, hardship, the divine, and true abiding joy. And while the lyrics are often expressing a Christian faith, as most of life was still very centered around the church in communities where this music was composed, people of many different worldviews have found the spirit of the music can still resonate with a passion and vision within them.
Another habit of the tradition is to make an instant community of those who gather to sing. From a first-time singer to a life-time singer, sharing in the joy and openness of making bright and roaring harmony shows us all what it can feels like to come to a situation as who we are, with our own individual voice, and see that it can compliment and amplify each other voice to make something bigger and fully than ourselves. This is the project and the promise of community with the brilliance and immediacy of song. There is no rehearsal. There is no performance. There is just a song being brought to life in whatever form people are able to bring it. It is direct Democracy in action as singers sit all facing one another and each takes a turn choosing a song, its pitch, its tempo, and which verses they want to sing. There are organizers, but no leaders. There are customs, but not hard rules, most of them just serving to give everyone their best chance to sing comfortably and have a fulfilling experience.

If interested please contact Dan Hunter at danhunt1985@verizon.net
And please feel most welcome and invited to our next sing:
Sunday, December 14th 6-8pm at Touchstone Theatre in south Bethlehem.
Let me emphasize that one of the original aims of this music was to teach untrained people to sing and enjoy, so you need absolutely no experience or skill, just interest J!

Gardening in the Greenway

Gardening in the Greenway Meeting

Saturday 11/15 at the Wildflower Café

Present: Nick Baily, Peter Christine, Gwen Colegrove, Peter Gaughin, Danelle Hakim, Annie Hasz, Darlene Heller, Daniel Hunter, Steve Hoog, Maureen Lynch, Lynn Nonnemacher, Dave Porter, Javier Toro, Gary Warren, Michelle

Those present included representatives from the city, the South Bethlehem Neighborhood Center, the YWCA, Holy Infancy School, the Wildflower Café, the Maze Garden Community, the Victory House, and the Alliance for Sustainable communities.

Darlene Heller summarized the Greenway project. Phase I will begin this spring with the trail section from New St. to Filmore. Workers will grade the land, add topsoil, seed grass, install the pathway and electrical conduits and establish basic landscaping. Once spots are selected for gardens, the city will do further soil testing but plans to import most of the growing medium after removing the gravel/cinder that composed the railroad bed. The city will use all $800,000 alloted for this site in this part of the transformation. Gardeners looking for funding should contact the Health Bureau, the Parks Department, and also look to independent sources like Rodale.

Gardens already growing in Bethlehem that may serve as models and resources for Greenway gardens include the Maze garden (all produce grown collectively, donated to New Bethany Ministries), the Victory House Garden (produce donated to the Neighborhood Center – Dave Porter contact), the Westside park garden (allotment gardens- Holly Heitmann contact), the MLK garden on Carlton Ave (started by Lehigh – allotment gardens – Dale Kochard contact) and the Calypso school garden (a garden as outdoor classroom).

So far, projects proposed for coming seasons include a garden near the Greenway that would be tended by children in the Neighborhood center's homework club and summer bridge program with collaboration from the YWCA. Maureen Lynch, a teacher at Holy Infancy, is working with Lehigh architecture classes to design an outdoor classroom including native plantings in the section of Greenway behind the school. Dave Porter hopes to expand already growing gardens in the Victory House G-way section.

These new garden projects have differing aims and needs, but can be connected through the following infrastructure:

• compost – establish centrally located compost that can double as demo

• greenhouse – shared propagation center (perhaps located behind Victory House)

• seed bank – we can begin saving more seed and holding regular seed and transplant exchanges

• classes – on seed saving, planning a season of gardening, cooking with the harvest, etc.

• growing protocol – establish "beyond" organic practices and share (for pest management, soil fertility, etc).

• food preparation + storage facilities – cold storage, demo kitchen (partner with LV Food Co-op?)

• farmer's market – we discussed moving this to the Greenway once phase I is completed – perhaps greenway gardeners could sell collectively

• interpretive trail – signage, tours

• the Landscape Framework – we all are interested in native, edible landscaping

• Parties + theater – regular events to encourage the use of gardens as a community gathering space

Here's some more ideas for themed gardens + different garden models: a peace garden (involve LEPOCO); allotment gardens (rented plots); science gardens (perform experiments – use to partner youth with college students); art gardens (sculpture); garden therapy (incl. Possibly very high raised beds for elderly); ethnic gardens (the tastes of Puerto Rico, of Bulgaria, of the homeland of Bethlehem residents); for-profit gardens, providing job training and entrepreneurship opportunities for youth, etc.

Other organizations and institutions not present but interested in supporting and partnering on gardening in the greenway projects include the CADC and Lehigh University. Others we should reach out to: LEPOCO peace center, Touchtone Theater, Hogar Crea, Unity house, New Bethany, Boys + Girls Club, the Fire Company, the NCC Culinary School.

Remember, gardens...

• can be beautiful AND productive

• feed people and save money

• can be playgrounds and classrooms

• grow leaders

• recycle "waste" materials (Waste = Food!)

• increase the lung capacity of the city

• give cultural heritage a place to thrive

• are fertile ground for healthy communities

Bethlehem needs a healthy green infrastructure to restore torn ecological and social fabric. A thriving network of gardens can be at our community's heart.

The Maze Community Garden

The Maze Community Garden Annie Hasz 11/12/08

Welcome to the Maze Garden, a sun-filled niche on the corner of 3^rd and New Streets in Southside Bethlehem. This season a community formed around the gardens’ growing to fill the raised beds with vegetables and the space with conversation, laughter, parties, and music.

Of course community isn’t just a place you can visit. It is an active connection that, to be healthy, must be lived and renewed all the time. However, some places provide more fertile ground for the growth of community than others. Gardens and green spaces are typically more inspirational than the concrete jungle and the work of cultivating the Maze garden brought many lives together.

Designed by Lehigh University students and students at a Banana Factory summer art program, the garden contains a central pond, a maze of raised beds, and an outer cradle of perennial beds. This summer we brought this framework to life.

We started veggie seeds in a farmer friend’s greenhouse in March and then incubated the baby plants in Lehigh’s greenhouse. The vegetables we grew included sungold cherry tomatoes and Cherokee purple tomatoes; greens including red Russian kale, orach, spinach, collards, chard, bok choi and lettuces; hot and sweet peppers; eggplant, okra; beans; peas; corn; radishes; onions; and garlic. In early spring we planted perennial, edible species like pawpaw (a fruit-tree also known as the Michigan Banana), elderberry, high-bush blueberry, sweet crab apple, and strawberry. A grower east of Hellertown helped us fill in our herb wheel and southern beds with mint, echinacea, thyme, sage, parsley, nasturtium, hyssop, calendula, elecampane, and oregano.

From March until mid-November we held Thursday afternoon work parties to plant, harvest, weed, mulch, build, and more. Every Friday morning we took our harvest from the previous evening to the New Bethany Ministries Soup kitchen on West 3^rd Street. Every First Friday (weather-permitting) we hosted a garden party that featured potluck food, the tunes of a neighborhood old-school DJ, presentations by community groups like the Lehigh Valley Food Co-op, hula-hoopers, and break-dancers.

We in the Maze garden community are inspired by the principles of permaculture, a system of perennial agriculture developed from the wisdom of traditional cultures and ecological ethics and design. We believe that Bethlehem needs a healthy green infrastructure to restore torn ecological and social fabric. A thriving a network of gardens should be at our community’s heart.

Reviews from the burners- A Benefit for the Caddy Woods-featuring: New Madrid Faults, Gods and Queens, and Weston

October 5, 2008
The Burners
Bethlehem, Pa

New Madrid Faults:

Jams for hoodie rockin time. Walk down your street as the first leaves are falling, in deep golden light that tells you summer's gone. Meet a new crush listening to this, with heart exploding excited and anticipating. Build ups and breakdowns featuring a well placed glockenspiel and horn section. Sweet thrash drums backing dancey throwdowns dedicated to getting the crowd full of energy. Their stage presence is so bright and heartfelt, bundles of swirling basslines and triumphant hooks; each member of the sizeable group (6-7 people at a time) is just rocking in their orbit, together composing the perfect soundtrack for setting off into the world on a great adventure. Immediately familiar melodies that stick themselves in your pocket to sing later. Mixtape worthy, super catchy, positive and fun - fall in love over this.

Gods & Queens:

Everybody was too shy to dance for New Madrid Faults, which is a shame- but they nodded fairly enthusiastically to Gods & Queens, a darker more growly group of bearded dudes in denim. This time, it was beer soaked and black. I had images of sinking vessels as they played, seeing lots of time spent exploring the creepy Pennsylvania woodlands and industrial wastelands. I also thought of engines, the sounds of planes, brutal harmonies of machinery which is still somehow beautiful and moving. The sounds of the subway rushing beneath you walking through a city. These songs remind me of destruction and plowing through dark roads with mountains watching from above. Hard hitting bass driven howls from scruffy kids haunted by ghosts and rock radio.

Weston:

Last on the lineup for the Burner's benefit featured the local Valley legends of Weston. The Northampton-Nazareth-Wilson collaborative set the stage for true legacy status, with the solidity, ease, and grace the band showed in their musicianship, and that at least half of the audience members sang along to their tunes.
Generally speaking, Weston was upbeat, edgy, and interesting. The band displayed the ability to completely fill a room with sound, while keeping the individual instrumentation and vocals distinctive and clear. Everyone's voices were in tune and similar, which made the swapping of lead vocals through the night hardly detectable. It also made their vocal harmonies, which was tastefully applied, pleasing to the ear.
Another stronghold of the band was their diversity of musical style. They weren't afraid to breach slow-songness, which was a bold touch to their punky persona. Their songs kept heads swinging the entire time, with the occasional eruption of flailing limbs. And, they played generally really short tunes, which kept the energy high, the vibe diverse, and people moving. All in all, the Weston boys lived up to their reputation of being a serious, focused, and motivated fixture of the Valley music scene.
As far as the general mood of the establishment is concerned, don't let the wood paneling on the walls fool you. The shit at the Burner's is hip.