When I was a boy, before I picked up a guitar and set my sights on rock and roll stardom, I dreamed of becoming a race car driver. It was the age of muscle cars: Plymouth Road Runners, Pontiac GTOs, and fire-breathing Ford Mustangs like the one Steve McQueen used to tear up the streets […]
Food and Fun
Things to see (this will include art, theater, dance, music, movies, comedy, spoken word, readings etc.)
Things to do (this will include activities like street fairs, 5k runs, reservoir tours etc.)
Posted inEye Level
Jersey City Artists Show at Manhattan’s Ivy Brown Gallery
Call it coincidence or call it causal. Either way, it can’t be denied that the neighborhoods of Manhattan that are most saturated with art, and art galleries, are the easiest ones to access from Jersey City. The PATH train stops in Chelsea twice. The first platform in Manhattan is right on Christopher Street. Depending on […]
Posted inOther Fun Stuff
This Weekend
It may be cold out there, but Jersey City is keeping busy with all sorts of events this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, the first Jersey City Book Art Fair will be at Mana Contemporary, and Joe Bataan will be performing at White Eagle Hall on Saturday night. Plus, there’s a karaoke contest, a winter […]
Posted inLatest News
Hudson County Community College to Honor MLK with Free Concert
To mark the 55th anniversary of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Hudson County Community College will present a special program of gospel, Broadway, and a variety of inspirational musical numbers performed by Angela Birchett and Joey Joseph-DiCarlo. The concert will take place on Tuesday, January 17, 2023 at 11:30 a.m. in the Atrium […]
Posted inVisual Arts
The Sacred Heart Beats Fiercely at the Curious Matter Holiday Show
True Christianity is not for the squeamish. Even the tamest versions of the faith ask believers to contend with a gruesome event: a human being nailed to a cross and left to suffocate in the sun. From the Pieta to the Passion to “The Last Temptation of Christ,” many famous works of art make Jesus’s suffering manifest […]
Posted inFood and Fun
Rogue Waves January: Joe Bataan, CR and the Nones, Tom Barrett, Debra Devi, and More
Though it’s been imitated plenty of times since 1967, “Subway Joe” remains unique. Everything on the record jostles for attention like buskers in the subway. The piano and the Caribbean drums are blown out, distorted, and gleefully shoved into the red. Trumpets blare with impatience like car horns in rush hour traffic on Fifth Avenue. […]
Posted inFood and Fun
Liberty Science Center Resurrects the Musical Laser Show with “Laser Taylor Swift”
Taylor Alison Swift cannot be called psychedelic. She traffics in concrete scenarios and writes and performs with an emphasis on clarity. There’s not a lot of fluff in her songs, nothing is loose, and nobody jams. Everything exists to serve the story and the star. Swift has become world famous by matching tales of young […]
Posted inNarrate
Nimbus Reimagines “The Nutcracker” for a Jersey Audience
There are three restaurants at the intersection of Grove and Mercer Streets — one Mediterranean, one Pakistani, and one American. Also, there’s City Hall. I mention this because it’s here that “Jersey City Nutcracker,” our version of the seasonal dance favorite, locates a magic manhole that allows its inhabitants a glimpse of the city as […]
Posted inVisual Arts
The Jersey City Arts Awards Continue to Confuse and Confound
Onstage at White Eagle Hall, a woman read a poem beside a flock of white birds. The birds were statuettes: pigeon-sized trophies given to the winners of the 2022 Jersey City Arts Awards. The woman was Professor Ann Wallace of the English Department at NJCU, cancer survivor and long COVID sufferer, and the newest Jersey […]
Posted inLatest News
Jersey City Arts 2022 — What Happened?
On some mornings, we bound out of bed. On others — especially if we’ve been under the weather — it takes a while to get going. Perhaps we stretch, perhaps we blather. We may knock a glass off the end table. Though we’re technically up, we may feel we’re still in a dream. Such was […]