Former Patch Editor To Helm Middletown Press

Cassandra Day learned on January 29th that she was out of work -- via conference call.

Patch.com was throwing in the towel.  The system of local news websites, formerly owned by AOL, has been lopping off staff.  For three years, Day had virtually single-handedly made the Middletown Patch one of the more successful sites, and she survived several rounds of closures and layoffs.  But not this time.

Despite the current bleak job prospects for journalists, Day, a Middletown resident, did have something to look forward to.

For the past two years she has been chronicling bits and pieces of the city she loves via her Instagram feed.  A collection of her photos are appropriately enough being featured as part of Klekolo World Coffee's rotating artwork, and Thursday night was the opening celebration.

Day, and her friends and supporters, had a bit more to celebrate than they planned.  Thursday afternoon, The Middletown Press announced via Facebook that Day had been named managing editor, starting February 24th.

"I'm thrilled to be covering my old stomping grounds" Day said.  Not surprisingly, considering Day's work for the past three years, The Press has asked her to focus on their online operations.

It's a familiar work environment for her.  Day was the features editor for the Press for 13 years.

Meanwhile, her photographs will be on display at Klekolo until the end of the month.  The collection includes "sidewalk grates, survey markers, fire sprinkler covers, oxidized meters, weathered signs, ramshackle barns — corroded and dilapidated yet ordinary things we pass every day without consideration." Day framed them herself, and yes, they are available for purchase.

Great Live Music at Klekolo

DJ NEB

It's Tuesday at Klekolo World Coffee on Court Street so that means live music. This week it was a pair of DJs: Jay Dun Jin and NEBula.

DJ Jay Dun Jin

Both DJ sets were fun and lively. Beat boxer MD Outta Order hosted the sets and entertained with his beat boxing vocal skills.

The crowd was there to listen in, chat, play chess and of course, drink some coffee.

Klekolo World Coffee has live music on Tuesday nights. It's a fun way to perk up a weeknight. Next week will feature the jazz music of Kevin O'Neil.

Christopher Polack is Middletown resident and blogger. www.thediversion.com

Meet the Veteran/Artist at Klekolo Friday Night

Look, someone snapped a photo of the latest photos to decorate Klekolo World Coffee's walls.

Maybe someone could take a photo of this photo of photos, and on, and on, and on forever.

But that's no way to see this art.  What you should do to see it is come out to Klekolo on Friday night, grab some fair-trade coffee, and support veterans' art.  Join the Veterans Art Foundation (a non-profit) as three local veterans showcase their photography.

There will be an opportunity to bid on art in a silent auction to benefit the foundation.  6-10pm, free admission, refreshments available for a small fee.

Here's a pretty nifty article about the foundation and the show in the Hartford Courant.

Photography Show At Klekolo

Klekolo World Coffee is one of those places in Middletown that is always showcasing local artists. This month they feature the art of Tony Palmieri, known mostly for his floral design company Datura: A Modern Garden. He's also a member of the artists collective Hurricane Clowns. But the work on display this month is Holga photography - a wonderfully unpredictable art form with a minimum of computer interference. Check out the video for images, info, and imprecise art.

Klekolo World Coffee Installs Bike Racks

The two new black 'wave' style bike racks installed in front of Klekolo World Coffee are being put to good use. Various bikes have been secured to the racks since they were installed right before Christmas by city public works employees. The racks were purchased by the landlord but installed on the public sidewalk by city workers. In addition, a layer of gravel was added to the dirt basin surrounding the four trees which provide shade and protection to those using the sidewalks on Court Street. Hopefully the new racks will reduce the use of less appropriate stationary objects, such as trees and telephone poles, for securing bikes.

Another Christmas Gift for Middletown thanks to the landlords of 181 Court Street and the Middletown Public Works employees.

submitted with photo by Paul Zakarian

Java Goddesses Brew Up Changes on Court Street

Amid friends and supporters and long-time customers, Klekolo World Coffee owner Hollie Rose announced that she has sold Klekolo to long-time employee and friend Yvette Elliott. Hollie made the announcement with what seemed like an intentional and playful timing which created some momentary mystery. "I sold Klekolo!" Hollie exclaimed. Pause... Pause... Pause... for what seemed like an eternity but was probably just a few seconds, while a collective intake of breath seemed palpable in the small crowd. "To Yvette ! " came the finish, to a chorus of cheers and enthusiastic applause. The change in ownership takes effect in a week. The coffee shop, which is known for being open 365 days a year, will be closed on Memorial Day and will reopen on Tuesday May 31st under the ownership of Yvette. The occasion was commemorated with a soulful didgeridoo solo, which provided a nice moment of reflection. In the near term there likely won't be any dramatic changes, and the delicious quality coffee will continue to flow in Klekolo as it has for the last 17 years.

Photo at top - former owner Hollie Rose and new owner Yvette Elliott carry out the business communication model for the new millenium. Via their mobile devices, Hollie updates her Facebook status with "I sold Klekolo" while Yvette updates her Facebook status with "I bought Klekolo"

Seventeen Years of Monkey and the Engineer

A friend called me and asked me to meet her at Klekolo on the spur of the moment. When I arrived, in front of her was the most beautiful work of art / delicious coffee drink I may have ever laid eyes on.

“Wow!” I said, “We need to take a picture of that.”

“I already did” came her answer, and with a click or two on her fancy phone there the picture was in my email inbox.

A Klekolo signature classic, The Witches Brew. Brewed and presented on a lazy drizzly Sunday just as beautifully pictured and described as promised on their menu... no exaggeration.

This month on March 18th, Klekolo celebrates 17 years in business, serving the best quality coffee in Middletown. They recently launched a re-tooled website (www.klekolo.com), which has some interesting history about the place. I have a long list of reasons why Klekolo is my favorite coffee shop in Middletown. To name just a couple, they use real whipped cream (no chemicals) and I have never once been displeased with any drink ~ everything is the best quality. Their lattes are done right, they way lattes were meant to be. Oh, and if you were wondering about the title of this post, well I guess you'll just have to go to Klekolo and ask for a Monkey and the Engineer to find out for yourself.

Happy Anniversary Klekolo!

Spook and Circumstance

One night recently my friend Vicki and I decided to take a walk from Klekolo where we were enjoying some treats after an electronics exchange of sorts. I had picked up a phone battery for our friend Kristina and Kristina had a video camera to lend to Vicki. We all met at Klekolo, unfortunately without Kristina's six year old who that day was elsewhere, but is usually everywhere his mom is, and entertaining us with his amazingly adult vocabulary and memory and lots of really cute giggling.

After the coffee shop swap meet, Vicki and I were heading down Main Street and we passed by three different camera crews. They seemed to be on every corner. We didn't see any news trucks, so finally at the third crew our curiosity got the better of us and we stopped and asked what was going on. There was a Middlesex Community College media class project in progress. The video crews were doing man-on-the-street interviews, and we ended up on camera talking about the Sun Chips bag controversy. If you feel out of the news loop, don't. Until stumbling into this video project I was completely in the dark about the Sun Chips biodegradable noisy bag “fiasco”. I later found some articles about it online including this one from the Wall Street Journal. After our sound bytes were recorded for posterity and hopefully a good grade in the class for two hard-working students, Vicki and I continued down Main Street to Rite-Aid to look for fake blood.

You might think she was getting her Halloween costume ready, and if you knew Vicki and how enthusiastic she is about Halloween every year that would be an excellent guess. However you'd be wrong. She needed the fake blood for a workplace safety training video she is creating for her job. The ironic thing about this was that she was on a second attempt to make the video, because the first attempt was botched by an actual injury with much blood loss and combined with hypothermia that led to some mild shock. She's all better now, but she still has to get this video done, and with fake blood, despite all the real blood that was lost at the first attempt. So while on her mission to get prepared for her own video, she helped some student videographers.

The search for fake blood led us to the Halloween aisle and had me cringing thinking about the awful Halloween costumes Vicki has somehow convinced me to dress in and wear in attendance at some party or another over the years. Beer Wench and Devil come to mind. One year we went to a party that had a Best Costume contest with (thankfully anonymous) written ballots. Vicki made the honest mistake of writing Sumo to vote for a stocky woman who was dressed as a Geisha. There was serious threat of punches being thrown and we left in a hurry.

This year, I expect Halloween to be a relatively quiet night of the usual handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. I am very glad that it falls on a day my husband is off work this year because he enjoys giving out the candy a lot more than I do, and I think that he puts a style into it that I just can't muster. Even though I am not a big fan of dressing up or handing out candy, I really like the fact that in Middletown kids go door-to-door trick-or-treating. I think that it's a sign of vibrant and healthy neighborhoods. Of course, there is also the leftover candy to be dealt with. But I am not complaining about that! Happy Halloween!

1000 Journals... And Counting

If you have made a stop into local favorite Klekolo World Coffee lately, you may have noticed a very plain announcement hanging on the register with a brief description of the 1000 Journals project. This project started about 10 years ago when “Someguy”, who I suppose wishes to remain anonymous, turned his fascination with bathroom wall scrawl and the reasons behind it into an interactive shared journaling project. The project became a book and later a documentary film, in which Klekolo appears for a brief moment. It is described as a “global 'message in a bottle'.” The original 1000 Journals website describes the origin of the project:

The 1000 Journals Project is an ongoing collaborative experiment attempting to follow 1000 journals throughout their travels. The goal is to provide a method for interaction and shared creativity among friends and strangers. How It Works: Those who find the journals add something to them. A story, drawing, photograph, anything really. Then they pass the journal along, to a friend or stranger, and the adventure continues.

After the project was underway for about 6 years, the 1000 Journals Project book was published by Chronicle Press. It's available to borrow at the Russell Library, though I bet its a safe assumption that the author and publisher might prefer you to buy your very own copy of it for your collection. The documentary by filmmaker by Andrea Kreuzhage was released on DVD in early 2009 and is about people whose lives are touched by the traveling journals. The film toured the festival circuit for the last two and half years and has received rave reviews too numerous to mention. It is available for purchase at Klekolo. The filmmaker has personally sent them to be sold in communities that participated in the project and sends her advanced appreciation for any help in supporting her art. The project also spent some time as a travelling art installation at various museums including an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The original concept of 1000 journals was launched without the sophisticated web tracking tool and only 1 of the 1000 journals ever made it back to the originator. That "one that made it back" is also known as Journal 562 and is the one that spent some time at Klekolo. I learned from the owner of Klekolo that Journal 526 circulated around Klekolo and it's regular (and maybe not so regular) customers for months. Many pages were done in and around Klekolo and other points in Middletown. As for the other 999, presumably they are floating around out there somewhere, or sitting on bookshelves, at the bottom of boxes, in basements or in landfills, just adding to the mystique of the project.

Because of the popularity of the project and the demand for it to continue on with more journals, the 1000 Journals evolved into the new, improved, and expanded 1001 Journals. Now individuals anywhere can start up the journals whereas the original concept had all thousand of the journals started and put into circulation by one person (Someguy). The project, originally dubbed an experiment, is still going on strong today. The journals are tracked on the website and some of the pages are scanned in so they can be viewed online. You can search for one of the nearly 3600 journals that are now a part of this project, and find journals that are still in progress and sign up to contribute a page. The journals that are involved in this project are making it all around the world with about 60 different countries represented. Some of them are kept private among a circle of friends who have signed up, and some of them are public and have specific themes.

I spent some time perusing the scanned pages of some of the more recent journals on the website and I felt a little disappointed that most of the pages are packed with artwork like drawings and collages but are sparse at best on the stories, thoughts, and feelings that traditionally might be associated with a journal. I think one of the appeals of this concept is the titillation factor of having a window into other people's minds and the vicariousness that goes along with that. The artwork is certainly nice to look at, but as they are journals, I observed a noticeable lack of the written word. I did learn from the owner of Klekolo; however, that many of the journals do indeed have much writing in them including personal stories and such. You can't see much of that on the website scans, for whatever reason, but I would venture a guess that having the book in hand and actually holding it and reading the writings would be a much more satisfying experience than looking at it online. I have also learned that in the published book there is a page that was created here in Middletown by Tony Palmieri of Datura, and that it is so visually appealing it got a full page spread in the published book.

I wonder if the absence of a known tracking system in the original launch may have produced pages with more heartfelt and profound scribblings, along the lines of what you can see in Found Magazine. Everyone who contributes to the journal pages of the current day project surely must know ahead of time that their work will be on display for the world to see. In any case, from the looks of it this project is now self-propelled with no end in sight. So who knows, maybe some of the other 999 original journals might reappear. Cause for a sequel, I'd say.

View the movie trailer on YouTube

Around Middletown in 80 Days: Day 10

Klekolo World Coffee
181 Court Street

Dear Friends,

On my tenth day of travel and exploration, I find myself exhausted. Despite the best laid plans, I'm having trouble accounting for the many obstacles on my journey around this marvelous city. Needing some energy, it was suggested I stop into a coffee house on Court Street, called Klekolo World Coffee. From my earlier adventure around the world, I know "klekolo" is an African word, which means "a system of rules to live by for peace and harmony in the world". A noble ideal! This sounds a most peaceful place to relax, converse with locals and enjoy an afternoon espresso. Take heart friends, I shall not be discouraged by physical exhaustion. I shall triumph! But first- a coffee break.

-Phileas Fogg

Fifteen Years and Still Perky

Okay, I know they don't serve perked coffee at Klekolo (pronounced Clay-ko-lo from Malian language of Minnianka, meaning, a system of rules to live by to achieve peace and harmony in the world), but the headline above sounded better than Fifteen Years and Still Drippy.

So today marks fifteen years that Klekolo has been offering high quality, high octane coffee to the residents of Middletown.

If you've visited, you know the coffee is superb, and that the tiny shop is a gathering space for hipsters, activists, bohemians and other members of Middletown's eclectic community.

Stop in today for a free piece of cake, and to compliment the staff on how spiffy the place looks.