DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Could you describe last Saturday’s Pride Festival in five words?

Sincerely,

Adjectives R Us

P for phenomenal, r for remarkable, i for incredible, d for delightful, e for exceptional. Yes, my thesaurus is…Out.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Nice reference to Out Montclair and its leaders who organized the June 11 event with the help of volunteers and others. All kinds of great entertainment and a huge, enthusiastic crowd in…

Sincerely,

Fan of Fun

…a chunk of downtown closed to cars. Even Kia’s Pride model.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Next on the calendar is Juneteenth, the important June 19 holiday marking the emancipation of African-American slaves. Among the ways it will be acknowledged locally is with the closing of Montclair’s municipal offices and schools tomorrow, June 17.

Sincerely,

A Major Late-Spring Thing

Schools closed to students? Downtown closed to drivers? Now I finally understand what The Carpenters meant when singing “Closed to You.”

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

The song is “Close to You,” you idiot. Meanwhile, an animal-advocacy group called Humane Montclair has been formed. Happy to hear that?

Sincerely,

Creatures and Critters

Yes, all good! I’ll celebrate by listening to Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat,” which of course should have been titled “Millennium of the Cat.”

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Also good are improvements coming for three more of Montclair’s parks: Nishuane, Essex, and Edgemont. Their first letters spell out “nee,” defined as “originally called,” so did those parks formerly have different names?

Sincerely,

Sites to Behold

Not that I’m aware of. Still, if The Edge’s U2 bandmate Bono ever visited Edgemont, you just know it would be renamed Bonomont. I can picture the park’s confused geese singing “Mysterious Ways.”


DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

I’m looking for funny column writing, but “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

Sincerely,

Thursday Bloody Thursday

Guess I’ll have to write this column “With or Without You” reading it.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

In other news, there are continued reports of some landlords not obeying Montclair’s rent-control law. How would you describe something so shameful in eight words?

Sincerely,

Octet Offensive

S for sad, h for hubristic, a for awful, m for mean, e for execrable, f for foul, u for usurious, l for lamentable. Even the fictional tenants in the “Apartment 3-G” comic strip aren’t immune.

 

 

Dave Astor, author, is the MontClairVoyant. His opinions about politics and local events are strictly his own and do not represent or reflect the views of Baristanet.