ATTENTION LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS: Did You Know You …

A WATCHUNG COMMUNICATIONS, INC. PUBLICATION The Westfield Leader and The Scotch Plains – Fanwood TIMES Thursday, August 30, 2018 Page 17

WESTFIELD MEMORIAL LIBRARY EVENTS SEPTEMBER 2018

550 East Broad Street, Westfield 908.789.4090 www.wmlnj.org

Hours: Mon-Thurs 9:30 am - 9:00 pm Fri & Sat 9:30 am - 5:00 pm Sundays 1:00 to 5:00 pm starting September 16

Closed September 1-3 for Labor Day Weekend

PROGRAMS FOR ADULTS

PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN

CHECK WEBSITE FOR REGISTRATION AND ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION

9/7 1:30 pm TGIF! The Imitation Game

9/12 7:00 pm Blues Musician Rockin’ Johnny Burgin

9/14 1:30 pm TGIF! American Classic: Tony Bennett

9/17 7:00 pm Plant-based Super Foods with Sue Rose

9/20 7:00 pm Tai Chi Demonstration with Gang Huang

9/21 1:30 pm TGIF! The Hudson River School-Artistic Pioneers

9/24 7:00 pm Diane Cypkin-The Music of Harry Warren

9/25 7:00 pm Cardio/Toning Exercise (2 more classes in October)

9/26 7:00 pm Rough Animals with author Rae DelBianco

9/26 1:30 pm TGIF! Classic Movie Week: When Harry Met Sally

9/6 & 13 10:30 am Zumba Fun 2-5 yrs Comfy clothes. With caregiver/parent

9/8 10:00 am Drop-in Chess Club-No age requirement but players must

know how to move the pieces

9/14, 21, 28 10:30 am Baby Playgroup 0-23 months With caregiver/parent

9/18 & 25 10:30 am 2’s on Thursday Storytime With caregiver/parent

9/18 & 25 1:00 pm Crafternoon Storytime 3½-5yrs

9/18 6:30 pm Evening LEGO Club 5+yrs Caregiver remains in library

9/20 & 27 10:30 am 3’s on Thursday Storytime With caregiver/parent

9/22 10:00 am Paws to Read-Beginning readers read to library dogs

for 10-minute sessions.

• Mailed to subscribers with the printed newspaper • Provided to stores • Attached to the online edition each Thursday

ATTENTION LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS: Did You Know You CanInsert Your Pre-Printed Advertisement into the Leader/Times?

Ideal for Targeting Your Audience! Go to goleader.com/presskit/insert for more information.

Theater Project to PresentComedy at Cranford Library

CRANFORD — The TheaterProject will present a staged, script-in-hand reading of an original playfrom its Playwrights Workshop, in-cluding a discussion between the au-dience and the author, on Saturday,September 15, at 2 p.m. in theCranford Community Center.

Theatergoers will enjoy MakingSense of the Universe… One Comedyat a Time!, a collection of short playsof comic absurdity by Luigi Januzzi,author of 27 published plays. TheCommunity Center is located at 220Walnut Avenue.

Headquartered at the BurgdorffCenter in Maplewood, The TheaterProject is an acclaimed professionaltheater group and the winner of twoNew Jersey Tony Awards. The pro-gram is sponsored by the Friends ofthe Cranford Public Library. Admis-sion is free and all are welcome.

For information about the Cranford

Public Library, the Friends of theCranford Public Library, and otherupcoming events, visit the CranfordPublic Library page atcranfordlibrary.org. For informationabout The Theater Project, visit theirpage at thetheaterproject.org.

Class of SPFHS 1958To Hold 60th Class ReunionSCOTCH PLAINS — The 1958

graduating class of Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School will be hold-ing its 60th reunion on Thursday,September 20, at Shackamaxon Coun-try Club in Scotch Plains. There willbe a cocktail reception at 1 p.m. fol-lowed by the main event at 2 p.m.welcomed by Mayor Al Smith ofScotch Plains, Mayor Colleen Mahrof Fanwood and a teacher from 1958.

What makes this reunion newswor-thy? This class was the first graduat-ing class in the newly built (at thattime) Scotch Plains-Fanwood HighSchool. In the previous three years,this class attended the old high schoolon Park Avenue on split sessions.

Also, their Senior Prom was held atShackamaxon Country Club, the siteof the 60th reunion. Reunions wereheld every 10 years plus an extrareunion in Arizona. Five of the otherreunions were held in the ScotchPlains area. The 50th three-day week-end reunion was held at the JerseyShore, where many of the classmatesspent time at the beaches and board-walks in their younger years.

Thirdly, this was a small class of184 who have remained connected.Reunions have gathered at least 100at each reunion. This is a remarkablestatistic compared to other classesspeaking to the uniqueness of thisclass. Eighty, 78-year-olds are ex-

pected at this two-day reunion in Sep-tember.

Many members went on to haveprofessional careers and many openedtheir own business. Sixteen classmatesmarried within the class…eightcouples, also a remarkable statistic.Approximately one-third of the classhas passed away.

One classmate’s father, RichardHatfield, was the mayor of Fanwoodand director of the County Board ofFreeholders. Another classmate’s fa-ther, Dr. Gary Osher, was the townphysician of Scotch Plains.

Classmate Stuart Burns was killedin the Vietnam War and perhaps wasthe only casualty living in Fanwoodof that war.

Thirty class members attended St.Bartholomew the Apostle School, nowknown as St. Bartholomew Academy.They were the first graduating classof that school as well. A very closegroup, they have remained friendsover the years and comprise 90 per-cent of the Reunion Committee.

For those attendees who arrive onWednesday, September 19, a minia-ture golf outing at the Scotch PlainsCountry Club and pizza party at theStage House Inn are planned.

For more information, please callClass of 1958 Reunion Committeemember Barbara Hauser Scott at (732)890-0996.

By Michael S. Goldbergerfilm critic

I doubt I’ve ever reviewed a moviemore important than Spike Lee’sBlacKkKlansman. Greater? Most likely.Although, in astutely fashioning his heart-felt S.O.S. about America’s burgeoningracist threat, Spike Lee is no slouch in theart department, either. This scintillatingfilm based on a true story about how, viaa white counterpart, Afro-American copRon Stallworth infiltrated the Ku KluxKlan, wouldn’t be nearly as shocking inits appeal to our better angels were it notsuch a fine achievement in cinema.

Will it win Best Picture? A mere bag ofshells. If Mr. Lee’s magnum opus provesto be this generation’s “Uncle Tom’sCabin” and successfully causes an elec-toral outcry against the seething hate thatcurrently threatens our ship of state, itwould behoove the Pulitzer Committeeto add a film category. I’m fairly sure that,assuming the prize wasn’t bestowed onthe same night that the New York Knickswere playing for the NBA championship,Spike would drop by to memorialize theoccasion of his humanitarian achieve-ment.

This is stirring stuff, devotedly ferry-ing the viewer from intriguing adventureyarn to the realization that racism, whetherin its inept reaction to inner city violenceor through the reckless injustice perpetu-ated at our borders, has tacitly becomeofficial policy. Smartly injecting stockfootage from cataclysmic episodes delin-eating the bias that Americans have pe-rennially heaped on their less fortunatecitizens, Lee, working from a script thathe, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitzand Kevin Willmott adapted fromStallworth’s book, writes responsible his-tory.

But while the action-filled, undercoverdrama at the center of the work will haveaudiences on tenterhooks, and thus primethem for the contemporary tie-in deto-nated in the movie’s last 15 minutes,patriots must hope that BlacKkKlansmanpreaches beyond the choir. The serio-comic irony is that it fights fire with fire.Our current crisis had its nascence inreality TV, which inveigled its way intoportions of the national consciousnessthat mistook the appeal of novelty and apromise of quick fixes for good govern-ment. Spike aims to out-dramatize thecon.

In flourishing the First Amendment asthe Founding Fathers intended when theycreated a democracy in a world ruled bykings, emperors and sultans, Lee pulls nopunches. Weaving his provocative saga,which takes place in the demonstration-filled era of the early 1970s, the inter-splicing of filmed documentation showshow entertainment and politics havemerged into a disingenuous Hydra.

Fine period piece effects recall theangst of the times, matched in look, moodand attitude by John David Washington’safro-coiffured title character and his even-tual love interest, Patrice Dumas (Laura

P O P C O R NP O P C O R NP O P C O R NP O P C O R NP O P C O R N

One Popcorn, Poor — Two Popcorns, Fair — Three Popcorns, Good — Four Popcorns, Excellent

Harrier.), president of the black studentunion at Colorado College. Theassertiveness of the activists portrayed, atonce innocently naïve and staunchlybrave, escapes caricature thanks to howconfidently Lee etches his muckrake. Butthere’s no equivocating when it comes tohow the KKK is depicted…no claptrapabout blame on both sides.

Similar to Steinbeck’s intermittent in-sertion of the so-called inner chapters in“The Grapes of Wrath,” Mr. Lee at poi-gnant times poetically pauses his narra-tive with stills of America’s purple moun-tain majesty, rivers and valleys. It im-presses how the beautiful goodness, ournew Garden of Eden, is endangered bythe sullying greed of narcissistic whitesupremacists who claim, in profane con-tradiction to the egalitarian ode sung byWoody Guthrie, that this is their land andtheir land alone.

Here we are in the 21st century only toagain find Orwell valid…that by dint ofcolor there are those who still considerthemselves more equal than others. Asubplot concerning the surreptitious Jew-ish identity of Stallworth’s white partner,Flip Zimmerman, superbly played byAdam Driver, adds a subtle, expansivewrinkle to the film’s insights into preju-dice.

We red-blooded—not black, notwhite—inclusionary Americans whoknow better are outraged by these practi-tioners of hate. Their fanaticism againstAfrican-Americans, Jews, gays and any-one else who stirs their fear is wheremalevolence meets evil. But while we arerendered aghast, the perpetration servesto affirm our resolve. No matter fromwhere we sprang to embrace Washing-ton, Jefferson and Adams’s bold experi-ment, the legacy, myth and ideology be-long to everyone. The Pilgrims, the cow-boys and Indians, the wars fought againsttyranny…it’s all ours.

Mr. Lee captures and compresses intoa nutshell not only the horror of bigotry,but its economic stupidity. Immersed inhis crucible of unvarnished truths, it strikesus how many countless lives continue tobe tragically ruined or ended by a venaljustification as nonsensical as the ideathat brown eggs are healthier than whiteones. How many potential curers of can-cer were deterred, barred or killed for nomore reason than their color, creed orreligion?

As BlacKkKlansman cries out to ourhumanity, it’s almost as if we can hearDaniel Webster himself exhort, “Endthis suffocating indecency that hasshrink-wrapped itself over our democ-racy in the guise of a TV show. Push alever in the voting booth and change thestation.”

…BlacKkKlansman, rated R, is a Focus

Features release directed by Spike Leeand stars John David Washington, AdamDriver and Laura Harrier. Running time:135 minutes.

BlacKkKlansmanThere’s no Politics like Show Business

4 popcorns

Ceramics and Photo ExhibitBegins Wednesday

UNION -- “Terra” an Exhibit ofCeramics and Photographs by Unionresident Jessica Garber will be hostedby the Les Malamut Art Gallery. Itwill be on display from Wednesday,September 5, through October.

A meet the artist reception will beheld on Thursday, September 6, from7 to 8:30 p.m. in the gallery. Thepublic is invited to attend.

Ms. Garber has been creating ce-ramics for the last four years andspecializes in carved surface texturesand applied patterns, as well as ex-perimentation with different ceramicfiring techniques.

Ms. Garber holds an AAS and BFA

from the Fashion Institute of Tech-nology, SUNY.

She has a passion for teaching andhas held various roles in New Yorkand New Jersey.

Her ceramic work is showcased inlarge scale photographs and three-di-mensional work in this solo exhibition.

The gallery is located on the lowerlevel of the Union Public Library,1980 Morris Avenue, Union. The ex-hibit is free and open to the publicduring regular library hours. It ishandicapped accessible.

For further information visitlesmalamutartgallery.wordpress.comor call (908) 851-5450.

UNIQUELY CARVED...“Terra” an Exhibit of Ceramics and Photographs byUnion resident Jessica Garber will open Wednesday, September 5, at the LesMalamut Art Gallery. Shown is a selection of ceramics by the artist.

Seeking Writers

Do You Have:* A Musical Background?* A Passion for Writing?

The Westfield Leader and TheScotch Plains-Fanwood Times isseeking creative writers who canreview local symphony perfor-mances.

Send a writing sample and briefresume or online resume for con-sideration to: ae@goleader.com.

CDC Theatre HoldingAuditions for Seussical

CRANFORD — CDC Theater iscelebrating its 100th season and isproud to announce auditions forSeussical, a fantastical, magical, mu-sical extravaganza! Tony winnersLynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty(Lucky Stiff, My Favorite Year, Once

on This Island, Ragtime) have lov-ingly brought to life all our favoriteDr. Seuss characters. These belovedstories will spring to live at the the-atres home, 78 Winna’s Avenue inCranford.

Auditions are set for Tuesday, Sep-tember 18 and Thursday, September20, at 7 p.m. Please prepare a 32-barcut of in the style of the show and bringsheet music in the appropriate key. Anaccompanist will be provided.Headshots and resumes are not re-quired but gladly received. Rehearsalswill be Tuesday and Thursday eve-nings 7:30 to 10 p.m. and Sundays 10a.m. to 4 p.m. (depending on need).Performances are to be held Decem-ber at 7,8,14, and 15 at 7:30 p.m. andDecember 9 and 16 at 2 p.m. Visitcdctheatre.org for additional details.

Youth Choirs of New JerseyTo Hold Auditions

AREA — Ever wonder what it’slike to perform locally, nationally,and internationally all in one season?Members of the Children and YouthChoirs of New Jersey invite talentedsingers, ages 7 to 18, to schedule anaudition to join these internationallyacclaimed ensembles. The goal ofthese choirs is to develop the love ofartistic singing, enhance music edu-cation, provide global performanceopportunities and enrich the lives ofour children and communities.

While prior training is not neces-sary, an audition is required. Singerswill be placed in the appropriate groupbased on their skills, maturity andreadiness. The audition process isquick and simple and there is no fee toaudition. The conductor will listenfor pitch retention, range and vocalquality. Singers may bring a selectionto sing or learn a simple song at theaudition.

Serving as Choirs-in-Residence forone of the largest production compa-nies in Carnegie Hall, members also

have the opportunity to perform inlocal venues throughout the schoolyear, and international venues in thesummer. Upcoming performances in-clude an appearance at the Interna-tional Festival of the Aegean in Syros,Greece in July 2019. Members re-sumes also include prestigious con-certs in at the Sistine Chapel, 42 showsfor Disney at the Paper Mill Play-house and many other world-classvenues of note.

Programs of the Continuo Arts Foun-dation, based in Summit with a North-east branch in Montclair, membershail from towns all over New Jersey,including Summit, Westfield, ScotchPlains, Madison, Chatham, Union,Roselle Park, Berkeley Heights, NewProvidence, Millburn/Short Hills,Maplewood, and many more.

Auditions take place at the ContinuoArts Conservatory of Music, locatedat 36 Chatham Road, Summit. Toregister for an audition appointment,visit bit.ly/cafaudition or call (908)264-5324.

Curtain Call ClassesOffered at CDC

CRANFORD — Registration isopen for the fall and winter CurtainCall Theatre Classes at CDC Theatre,located at 78 Winans Avenue. Classeswill run for 12 weeks on Mondays,beginning September 17. Students ingrades 3 through 5 will meet from3:30 to 5 p.m. and students in grades5 through 8 at 5:30 to 7 p.m. Bothgroups will combine for performancesof T’was the Night Before Christmason Saturday, December 8, at 1 and 3p.m. This Christmas musical givesevery student a star-turn with excitingtheater exercises that build confidenceand creativity in a supportive, livelysetting. Tuition is $325 and $300 foreach additional sibling. Visitcdctheatre.org for more information.

SING YOUR HEART OUT...Children and Youth Choirs of New Jersey invitetalented singers, ages 7 to 18, to schedule an audition at the Continuo ArtsConservatory of Music, located at 36 Chatham Road, Summit.

Crescent Choral SocietyInvites New Singers

AREA — The Crescent ChoralSociety is welcoming new singersfrom high school, and in all voiceparts for its upcoming November 3concert. No auditions are needed, justa joy of singing great choral compo-sitions from all periods. While theability to read music is preferred, it isnot required. Current Choral Societymembers come from all areas andtowns in central New Jersey and be-yond. For the November 3 concert,the Choral Society will be perform-ing Haydn’s stirring Mass in Time ofWar, combining forces with the NewJersey Intergenerational Orchestraand the Westfield High School Cho-rale. This unique and singular col-laboration of voices and instrumentsin the neo-Gothic splendor of theCrescent Avenue Presbyterian Churchwill be conducted by Artistic Direc-tor of Crescent Concerts and the Cres-

cent Choral Society, Deborah SimpkinKing.

Rehearsals for this upcoming con-cert are on Monday evenings from7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Rehearsal dates are:September 10, 17, 24; October 1, 8,15, 22, 29. Dress Rehearsal is Friday,November 2, with a performance onSaturday, November 3, at 5 p.m.

All rehearsals and the performanceare held in the Crescent Avenue Pres-byterian Church in Plainfield.

If you are a singer looking for awarm, inviting and inspiring musicalexperience, the Crescent Choral So-ciety can provide it. Come, check usout.

For more information or to registerto sing, please contact the ChoralSociety Concert Managers: BingBills, anglohye@comcast.net orMichael Tackvic,myktak@verizon.net.

NJIO AnnouncesOrchestra RehearsalsAREA -- New Jersey

Intergenerational Orchestra (NJIO)will hold two, free, Monday openhouse rehearsals on September 17and September 24, from 4:30 to 9:30p.m. at 570 Central Avenue in NewProvidence. Individuals interested injoining the orchestra, whether a be-ginner, lapsed, curious or a virtuoso,are welcome to attend and learn more.

NJIO is a unique organization inwhich musicians of all ages and skilllevels experience the joy of makingmusic together. Professional musi-cians work alongside members asmentors and the result is artistic ex-cellence with a strong educationalcomponent in a non-competitive,musically challenging atmosphere.

NJIO has three orchestras to ac-commodate a range of skill levels andmembers choose which to join: Pre-lude String Ensemble, a small groupfor beginning string players, Inter-mezzo, a full symphonic orchestrafor advanced beginner and interme-diate players, and Symphony, a fullsymphonic orchestra for intermedi-ate and advanced players who want toparticipate at a high level. No audi-tions needed. Each orchestra rehearsesweekly and performs in four annualconcerts in N.J. public venues.

Visit http://njio.org to learn more.