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By Ethan Pettit (With portions contributed by Amelia Blanquera)
Photos by William Hereford
What is surprising about pastor Jay Bakker is not only that he is covered in tattoos, wears a lip ring, and preaches Galatians on Sundays at a bar in Greenpoint. And not only that his ministry, the Revolution Church, which he shares with a dapper Lutheran from Fresno named Vince Anderson, is gay affirming.
photo by Bess Adler
Stacey Brook interviews the owners of Guerra Paint & Pigment about the business of teaching artists how to customize their own colors
When longtime Williamsburg residents Art Guerra, Seren Morey, and Jody Bretnall talk about paint, they don’t talk in standard shades of color, they talk in cultural references. Pigment PY24, also known as Flaventhrone, isn’t an off-white, it’s the pigment responsible for the cream-colored Buicks of the 1970s. Perylene Green Black (PBLK31) isn’t a dark green, it’s the hue used to paint stealth bombers, which incidentally, is “the most expensive pigment in existence,” says Guerra. When giving the WG a demo on mixing Guerra Paint’s pure and potent pigments into a white base to make the high caliber, endlessly customizable paint the shop is known for, Bretnall doesn’t make a red, he makes PR170. “The Original Ferrari Red.”
phoo by Water Under Attack
em>Athena Ponushis investigates how proposed gas drilling could endanger NYC drinking water.
Josh Fox has watched more than one man light his tap water on fire. He has seen the faucets of six separate homes sputter and ignite into flames. He has filmed the phenomenon, rewound the scene, and played it backwards in slow motion. And on April 30, the director stood between a blue curtain and a Park Avenue crowd, projecting the sensation, projecting his fear for the foreseeable future—the sacrifice of New York City drinking water for more natural gas drilling upstate.
Energy companies are now eyeing the gas-rich reserves sprawled beneath the city’s watershed. But to extract the natural gas, chemicals must be injected into the ground—chemicals not being disclosed to the public, chemicals federally exempt from disclosure. When 36-year-old Fox heard his unfiltered drinking water could be polluted, he could not sleep. The Brooklyn-based filmmaker drove his Toyota and his camera out West to meet those living as neighbors to natural gas, those with enough methane in their water to light their water on fire.