ETCETERA

GUIDE TO THE ARTS

ART

CALL TO ARTISTS

46th Annual Art-in-the-Park, application deadline August 15.The West Park Civic Association’s Art-in-the-Park returns to Allentown’s West Park on September 18. Free exhibition space offered to high school and college students. Applicants will be vetted by Ward Van Haute, and Diane LaBelle. Application information westpark-ca.org

ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM

May 16-Sept. 12

Roots: Sources for American Art and Design.

Works by Plains & Northwest Coast Native Americans; artists of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, known for their abstract quilts, and the Shakers. 31 N. Fifth St., Allentown. 610-432-4333. Allentownartmuseum.org

ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM

May 16-Sept. 12

Sleep Tight! Bedcovers and Hangings from

Around the World. Outstanding bedcovers and bed curtains from the Museum’s collection.31 N. Fifth St., Allentown. 610-432-4333. Allentownartmuseum.org

ARTSBRIDGE

Through June 30 2021 Members’ Online Exhibition. ArtsbridgeOnline.com

BETHLEHEM HOUSE GALLERY

Through June 12 The Glass Show. This exhibit features glass art in various disciplines. 459 Main St., Bethlehem. 610-419-6262. BethlehemHouseGallery.com

NEW HOPE ARTS

May 22-July 18

Weaving Re-Imagined Invitational Exhibi-

tion. Weaving, its applications and reinvention among contemporary artists. Reservations recommended. 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope. 215-862-9606. Newhopearts.org

SILVERMAN GALLERY

May 15-June 19 Jean Childs Buzgo: Vibrance. Artist Receptions May 15, 5-8 and May 23, 1-4. In Buckingham Green, Rte. 202, just north of PA 413, 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA. 215-794-4300. Silvermangallery.com

THE SNOW GOOSE GALLERY

Through June 13 The Art of the Miniature XXlX, the 29th invitational exhibition of fine art miniatures from around the world. Visit the show online at thesnowgoosegallery.com. 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-974-9099.

MUSIC

BACH CHOIR OF BETHLEHEM

Virtual 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival, May 14 & 15. 610-866-4382. Bach.org

ZOELLNER ARTS CENTER

Virtual events available for 30 daysfrom premiere date: Casey Abrams, premieres Friday, April 30. Joan Osborne, Songs of Bob Dylan premieres Friday, May 2 Zoellnerartscenter.org

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THEATER

TOUCHSTONE THEATRE Spring Festival of New Works Young Play-

wrights’ Festival, May 22, 7:30 for student playwrights and 8:30 for livestream. Touchstone.org.

TOUCHSTONE THEATRE

Spring Festival of New Works-Fresh Voices, June 4-5, 8pm. Solo and ensemble-based works in progress, created by 2020-2021 apprentice/MFA students. Touchstone.org.

ACT 1 PERFORMING ARTS

May 15 & 16. Online. Songs for a New World, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. DeSales University. Desales.edu/act1

CAMP

TOUCHSTONE THEATRE

In-person summer camps. Teen Ensemble, July 5-16 and Camp Touchstone, July 19-30. Bethlehem, PA. More information Touchstone.org.

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EVENTS

PEDDLER’S VILLAGE

Strawberry Month. Enjoy Strawberry food and drink specials and weekend entertainment. Through May 31. Murder Mystery outdoor events, weekends. Through June 30. Comedy Under the Stars. June 25 Routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, Bucks County, PA. 215-794-4000. PeddlersVillage.com

<13 STEVEN ROGERS

You write, interestingly, that there is a $153,000 wealth gap between Black and white people on an average. That’s a real eye-opener. How did you get to that number, and how do we start chipping away at it?

I got there, first, because the federal government has identified, through research, that the average net worth of a white family is $170,000 vs. $17,000 for a Black family. That’s objective, empirical research showing the disparity. That’s a big delta. The solution to this is not just to create more Black businesses and give out more Black jobs. That delta is so damned big because the federal government created and maintained anti-Black policies for over 400 years. You cannot say that if more Black people got education and jobs that it would close that wealth gap— that is not true. Education is not the great equalizer. The net worth of a white person with a high school degree is equal to that of a Black person with a college degree. The reason for that is the transference of wealth intergenerationally. That hasn’t happened for Black people. Therefore, my recommendation is that the only way that this gap can be closed is through reparations. This gap was created intentionally, manufactured throughout 248 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, redlining, and Black Codes. This gap did not happen organically. The government wasn’t just being mean to Black people—they purposely impoverished Black people. Unless something like reparations closes the wealth gap, it will always exist. If you stop white wealth creation right now and continue Black wealth creation at the pace that it is now, it would take Blacks almost 250 years to catch up to where white people are today. We can’t get past 248 years where there was no transference of wealth. The only way is through reparations. The government has to do something to reverse what they did to Black people.

Your points are compelling and solid. Your mission is not to make white people feel bad, just aware. When you say the word ‘reparations’ to many white people, they blanch.

There’s something in the psyche of white people, seemingly, that disdains the idea of doing anything positive for Black people. There’s something that whites loathe about righting the wrong that was perpetrated. The federal government paid reparations to slave owners, and the reality is that there will always be whites who disdain the idea of reparations because they feel as if they’re losing. ‘If I give to you, I’m losing something.’ What I’m proposing is not something that will burden white Americans. The other mindset is that we Blacks have to let all of this go. Slavery. We can’t let it go because it’s destroyed us financially. The way to erode part of this mindset is through education, informing people of what happened. That it wasn’t hard work alone that got them where they are today. If white people realize that they have been the beneficiaries of subsidies from the federal government, literally designed to help white people and explicitly designed to tear down Black people—that must be known. People never see reparations as a positive way to right the wrong. In Germany, most Germans were absolutely against giving reparations to the Jewish people. The response from Germans was even more vociferously anti-reparations than what we see today in America. Despite that, though, it can happen. Bold action is not based on what’s popular. Like the German governåment, ours has to do the right thing.

How do you think we can decrease the dependence of Black, white, and brown Americans on welfare? Soon? How do we turn a lifelong crutch into a leg up? Because you know, and I know, the government has made people dependent on social welfare in the same way that the CIA made crack widely available in cities with deep, wide Black populations. They flooded these towns with cheap, addictive drugs to create an algebra of need. All of this is not about blaming victims, but rather the government for flooding major metropolitan urban areas with cheap and addictive drugs to create an algebra of need.

Great analogy. Great question. I believe that the absence of the government giving people checks to Black people—as they did the Japanese after we imprisoned them during World War II—we need to create a New Deal. The Biden administration is doing this with its job creation and the forging of new infrastructure. I support all of these things and the means to put people to work. I think, though, even with that, that the average net worth of working Black people is still significantly lower than the average net worth of working white people. To get people off of welfare, we need a government infrastructure development program to create jobs. The government needs to put money into Black-owned banks and Black-owned businesses that hire Black people. But, again, I want to be careful about burdening Black-owned businesses with solving all of the problems of Black America.

I would say to you that most people on welfare would prefer to work. Therefore, jobs need to be created, and Black entrepreneurs need to be encouraged. How do we help Black people take care of themselves? The only way is by giving people a job. If people are chronically unemployed, they have to learn new ways to keep those jobs. And I can’t necessarily get away from the importance of reparations as being part of the solution. It’s the right thing. n mated romantic feelings are still enough to induce guilt in Amal, and cause tension with Bhupati when he finds out. Ray mostly eschews melodrama for gentle heartbreak. The film rolls along like a deceptively placid river, culminating in a devastating freeze-frame that hits with the stomach-dropping force of a waterfall. (Streaming on Criterion Channel)

<16 CLASSIC FILMS

Being There (1979, Hal Ashby, USA)

A tale lived by an idiot, Hal Ashby’s classic satire, loosely adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, features the incomparable Peter Sellers as Chance, a middle-aged gardener/shut-in raised entirely on television who, purely by happenstance, becomes a political force to be reckoned with. After he’s cast out of the only home he’s ever known, fate puts Chance in the path of Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), daughter of a powerful financier, Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), with access to the halls of power. Chance’s homespun, plant-metaphor-prone “wisdom” charms everyone with whom he crosses paths, leading to manipulations, misunderstandings, and one riotous sex scene that are side-splitting in their ridiculousness and chilling in their effects. It’s easier nowadays to picture a moron in power, though what continues to fascinate about Being There is how not one of its characters seems to be fully, consciously malevolent. Chance is in many ways an innocent, though there’s something in the mercurial way Sellers plays him that suggests he has a latent sense of the power he wields. Both Chance and the people who exploit him stumble into authority and supremacy, and they don’t realize how absurd they look getting there. (Streaming on Amazon) n

Answer to this month’s puzzle

<5 VISITATION

My memories with them include not just good moments but important ones. When I first watched the “Teach The World To Sing” Coke commercial at their house and made some ignorant, youthful remark about it, they questioned what I meant, without rebuke. It changed how I saw things. More than addressing equality and morality, it was a lesson in mentorship and parenting. A demonstration of how much can be accomplished with some love, respect, and attention. It was not how my family worked. That functioned on the Seen And Not Heard operating system, which had a wall to be negotiated between parents and children.

It was the Viet Nam era, and I spent an evening at their house watching the televised Draft Board lottery drawing that would determine what the rest of my life might look like and perhaps how short it would be. It was a sobering, scary time, and I wanted to be in a safe place with people I loved. When my lottery number put me beyond harm, we broke out the guitars. So many nights on their couch being part of a family. Yule logs at Christmas, badminton on the 4th of July.

One day their son came home from school and found Erna on the bed, breathing erratically. She was taken to the hospital, where she died of a brain aneurysm. I was in my early twenties, and it was difficult to understand or know where to put my feelings. That period marked a change in orbits. I had moved out of my house and became self-sustaining. George, who had three children to care for, eventually married again to Pauline, who had four kids of her own. They bought a gentleman’s farm north of Doylestown (sheep, horses, chickens), and I stayed there at times to keep things running when they went on trips. But the whole dynamic had changed. There were no more evenings of patience and wisdom; no more breaking out the guitars.

By the time I was 30, I had moved away, and life was different for everybody. I’m not good at maintaining relationships that don’t have current relevancy, and contact with George was sporadic. We heard from each other every few years. They showed up at an exhibition reception in ‘99. That was the last time I saw him. Twenty-plus years ago. Now he is gone, too.

I sat at my desk looking out at the overcast dawn sky, thinking about the person I considered a surrogate father of sorts, and wondering where I would find a place in the city where I could be alone, be quiet, and have a conversation with him. The sun broke through the clouds just over the buildings on the East Side, reflected off the cabinet doors behind me, casting a golden light toward the end of the room. A person-size section of the couch grew luminescent in the morning dimness. I’ve never seen that before. It gave me the chills.

I framed the first paragraphs of this essay with that glow in the corner of my eye. It eventually faded and was gone, but the experience stayed with me. There was a stillness and peace in the room. Whatever had happened—the way the clouds moved, where the light shone, what was going through my head, that radiance—was another chapter in a story that began a half-century ago. I pulled my kit out of the closet and set up to paint before it all wore away. Maybe it was just an unusual coincidence. Or maybe George stopped by to leave me with something to consider. This painting, for instance. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. n