Friday, March 13, 2015
Atlanta Church Project
A mapping of over 50 small community churches in the Hosea Williams Blvd corridor from Candler Dr. to Cabbagetown, 2011/2012. Three services were filmed and edited from the original 2 - 2 1/2 hour length to 5 or 6 minutes: True Deliverance, Jesus House of Prayer and Faith Christian Fellowship. Links to the videos can be found by clicking on their pins on the map. Click here for full version of map. map produced by Calvin Burgamy
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
It’s not like that at 37 Bolton Road. Everything unpredictable,
unenforced and everything always up for gobs of discussion. Even simple
matters, like where to stop for gas, become bloated, confusing conundrums for
the entire family to chew on. No line between the two parents and two children
– my sister and I – cleans up these free-for-alls.
“No, don’t go to the Shell station.”
“Why not?”
“It’s on the wrong side of the street. You’ll have to make two
left turns.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“No, don’t go to the Esso.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it? How do you ‘not like’ a gas station?”
“You just went to the bathroom.”
“We wanna go where the horse is.”
“Yeah, Pegasus. We want to go to Mobil, c’mon. We wanna see the
horse. . .”
“Let’s just get it on the way back. We have gas right now.”
“No, Bob. You always do this. We need gas, and we need it now.”
Judy and I never doubt that Mom and Dad love us, and we take
that for granted, along with all our other blessings, when we form our
non-verbal early childhood alliance to fill the power vacuum in the general
nuthouse atmosphere at home. Most of the time, nobody’s in charge. And then we
have the “go ask your father” and “go ask your mother” volleys when the two big
people can’t agree over what to do about the upstarts.
Sometimes, when the confusion engulfs everything, Judy and I
exchange a glance that means enough is
enough, at which point we step into the shambles, grab the rudder, and
right the listing family vessel. Every now and then, something extraordinary
results.
On
this one thick and still summer Sunday, the sky goes dark with hulking
thunderclouds. Trees curve, elastic in the gusts. Wind pours through the house,
then curtains of rain shimmy everywhere. The lawn gone to pewter, everything
sideways and swaying, everything wet, even the windowsills and the floors
around the windows and little fingers, wet, clutching the windowsill. The storm
full and fat and thrilling.
And
then it’s gone. And everything’s changed. The temperature plummets, maybe
fifteen degrees. New scoured air electrifies the land. Judy and I bounce around
the house as if we’re plugged into that current.
We start bellowing, “Let’s go for a ride!”
We have to go for a ride. Mom and Dad never want to go for
rides. But so what? We have to see it, the washed world. It won’t last, we know
it won’t. We have to see it before it disappears. We’re in emergency management
mode. Mom and Dad are beached whales, immoveable and mute, but within minutes
they succumb to the force of our desire. We herd them into the car. "C’mon,
hurry, before it goes away!"
The car rolls down Bolton Road to Hartford
Terrace, but instead of turning left towards school and work, the car turns
right. In no time we’re out on Oneida Road, out in the country. Nobody else has
yet emerged. The empty road glistens pitch black and forest green and sky blue.
The car hums, windows down and ballooning with pure new air. On rolling
Adirondack foothills, the road curves through the dairy farms and the spruce
groves. Nobody speaks. The spectacular new world overwhelms our small family,
and binds us together.
by Jonathan Marcus
Sunday, March 08, 2015
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