Musings from the staff of New Jersey Monthly.
Have a Greenhouse Gas!
Nothing Al Gore would get on your case about.
The truly magnificent Indoor Display Gardens at Duke Farms in Hillsborough will close indefinitely after May 25th as part of a massive renovation transforming the 2,740-acre property into an environmental showcase and learning center.
Until then the gardens will be open for free self-guided tours.
...continue reading.
Tags: Hillsborough | Duke Farms
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Adventures in Home Ownership
A friend of mine bought a house in North Carolina a few years back, and when she first moved in, she slept with a hammer, a garage-door opener, Lysol spray, and her cell phone under her pillow. (The plan, apparently, was to distract an intruder by opening the garage door while spraying Lysol in his face, calling 911, and threatening him with a hammer). As an easily scared whimp, I figured I'd probably do the same thing someday.
...continue reading.Tags: Maplewood | home | home and garden | real estate
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Life is a Cabernet
Before I write anything about Gary Vaynerchuk, I need to send you to winelibrarytv.com. There's nothing I can put here that would capture him the way any of his daily ten-minute web videos do. In each one, he uses a gonzo-journalism approach to convey his latest feelings about wine—doing tasting showdowns and going off on tangents about everything from his beloved Jets to the WWF battles of his youth. It's as fun as you could imagine an intellectual wine discussion can be. And now that energy is focused in print, in the pages of Vaynerchuk's new book, 101 Wines to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World.
...continue reading.Tags: Springfield | Wine | Wine Library | wine
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Weapon of Mass Lovin'
There may have been empty seats in South Orange Performing Arts Center on Wednesday night. But the ticketholders who belonged in them weren't far away—they were likely dancing in the aisles or up on stage with Grammy award-winning singer Angelique Kidjo, whose performance electrified the room and got everybody on their feet.
...continue reading.Tags: South Orange | Africa | Kidjo, Angelique
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Lewis Black: Angry in Red Bank
What makes you mad? I'm not talking about petty annoyances like getting stuck at a red light or forgetting your EZPass for a trip down the shore. No. I'm talking vein-popping, blood-boiling, spit-spraying pissed. Chances are if it's politics, our country's current state of affairs (think election mudslinging and our drowning economy) or your pathetic golf swing, Lewis Black is just as angry. And on Wednesday, March 26, Black let everyone in the Count Basie Theatre know just how pissed he is.
...continue reading.Tags: Black, Lewis
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Into the Light of the Dark Black Night
To call the Fab Faux the world's greatest Beatles cover band, while true, doesn't do justice to how insanely good they are. These five musicians---the best-known is probably the human beanstalk Will Lee, the innately comic and hugely talented bassist of Paul Shaffer's David Letterman band---are dedicated to duplicating live the entire Beatles catalog exactly as it sounded on record.
Even the Beatles could not do that after their first few albums. And that's why there are five musicians in the Fab Faux--they aren't about looking like the Beatles, they are about bringing the music of the greatest rock band of all time (sorry, Mick and Keith) to life on the hugest canvas--live performance--at the highest level of musicianship.
But this post is about more than the splendid performance of the Fab Faux, whose concert I attended Saturday night at the Shea Center at William Paterson University in Wayne. It's also about a song written for a seriously afflicted child (and recorded in part at the concert). It's about a volunteer group called Songs of Love that has now created exactly 15,000 such songs, each one different. And it's about the recipient of that 15,000th song and his family, who were at the concert.
...continue reading.Tags: fab faux
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NJM Expands Offices!
Widespread joy broke out among the New Jersey Monthly staff this morning as two new offices--reflecting the latest in modular design--were unveiled at our headquarters on the Morristown Green.
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