Do you ever look at ArtsJournal? It has the best links! Today there’s a fun link to the Post-Standard in Syracuse about a library in a phone booth. Writes Maureen Nolan: “The Little Free Library credo is ‘take a book, leave a book.’ That’s pretty much the only rule. Every Little Free Library is supposed [...]
Archive for February, 2012
Library in a Phone Booth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, library, magnetic fields, maureen nolan, phone booth, portable reading room, reading, sam davol, sept. 11, syracuse, uni project on February 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
French Artist Underground Preserves Heritage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged artists, catacombs, collective, french, jon lackman, stealth, underground, wired on February 28, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Loved this Wired article about an unusual artist underground in France that preserves antiquities under cover of darkness. Jon Lackman writes that the Urban eXperiment (UX) “is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde — confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new — its only audience is itself. More [...]
Presentation Class
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged actor, brandt johnson, consultant, corporate, drama, playwright, presentations, speechwriter, stage, syntaxis, theater, tv on February 27, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I have always loved theater, and even when I have been in a play and felt stage fright, I have been able to make it work as a springboard for the lines I have to say. But when I have to do a presentation as myself and not a character, I freeze up. Which is why [...]
Insurance and Poetry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connecticut, hartford, insurance, jeff gordinier, peter quince, poet, poetry, wallace stevens on February 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
My sister is a poet, among other things, and she sent me this story about a famous poet and his association with the not-always-poetic city of Hartford, where he worked for insurance industry. (Which just goes to show that poetry blossoms where it will.) Jeff Gordinier writes in the NY Times about taking a Wallace [...]
Ex-inmates Reborn through Theater
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Activism and Outreach Through Theater, connecticut, dante, drama, ex-inmate, ex-offender, jail, niantic, play, prison, ron jenkins, shakespeare, theater, wesleyan, women's prison, York Correctional Institution in Niantic on February 25, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I’ve blogged about Mary Driscoll and OWLL, the nonprofit she set up to help ex-offenders break vicious cycles. Soon she will launch her play Generational Legacy, about what happens to children when mothers are imprisoned. People who had experienced prison helped her write it. Because I am very interested in this and other ways that [...]
Asakiyume Highlights Black Cartoonist
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged african american, asakiyume, black, cartoon, cartoonist, Chicago, cotton club, courier, harlem, humor, jackie ormes, journalism, negro, newspaper, pittsburgh, race, torchy on February 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Asakiyume writes a blog I enjoy a lot, and this week she had an intriguing post on Jackie Ormes, generally considered the first female African American cartoonist. See examples of work by Ormes at Asakiyume’s blog, here. According to wikipedia, Ormes (1911 to 1985), “started in journalism as a proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly [...]
Behavior Change through Games
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged behavioral economist, booth school, cass sunstein, Chicago, fun theory, nudge, prize-linked savings, richard thaler, swedish, volkswagen on February 23, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the Booth School of Business in Chicago, wrote an interesting op-ed in the NY Times recently. “Governments,” he says, “typically use two tools to encourage citizens to engage in civic behavior like paying their taxes, driving safely or recycling their garbage: exhortation and fines. These efforts are often ineffective. [...]
Soup
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bhag, goal, goal setting, hbr, jerry porras, jim collins, satisfaction, soup on February 22, 2012 | 4 Comments »
In the workplace, people talk a lot about setting goals, achieving goals, surpassing goals. I guess that’s reasonable enough for organizations. If you sell 5,000 widgets this month and can sell 10,000 next month, that’s good for the company, and you may feel personal satisfaction, too. You may get a trophy for being widget-seller of [...]
Smiling and Life Satisfaction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Dacher Keltner, Ernest L. Abel, happiness, J. Patrick Seder, LeeAnne Harker, michael L Kruger, ReadWriteWeb, satisfaction, Shigehiro Oishi, smiles, smiling on February 21, 2012 | 2 Comments »
The site ReadWriteWeb has an interesting piece on smiling and life satisfaction. “Researchers J. Patrick Seder and Shigehiro Oishi at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville discovered that smile intensity from a single Facebook profile photo in the first semester of college predicted self-reported life satisfaction three and a half years later, at the time [...]
Longer-form Web Writing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged artist, birthstone jewelry, cowbird, digital technology, jennfer preston, Jonathan Harris, Luna & Stella, moma, photo, photographer, photography on February 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Jonathan Harris sounds like a kindred spirit. Of course, he’s a real photographer, and I’m not. But back in August 2010, he decided to take a photo every day of something that interests him and write a short piece about it for the web. He made that decision on his birthday, writes Jennifer Preston in [...]
“Daddy Long Legs”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a little princess, college, curly top, daddy long legs, education, Frances Hodgson Burnett, fred astaire, great expectations, jean webster, john caird, learning, lesley caron, leslie caron, magwitch, megan mcginnis, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, miss havisham, Nicholas Nickleby, opportunity, pip, rob hancock, royal shakespeare, shirley temple on February 19, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Don’t you love “secret benefactor” stories? You remember, of course, that in Great Expectations Pip was convinced Miss Havisham was his secret benefactor. (Spoiler alert! she wasn’t.) A similar theme is found in Frances Hodgson Burnett‘s A Little Princess, about a much-abused but uncomplaining orphan who one day trudges the weary steps to her bare-bones [...]
Unusual NYC Tour Bus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged actor, edward rothstein, entertainment, new york city, the ride, theater, tour, tour bus, travel on February 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Speaking of theater, here’s a new one on me. According to Edward Rothstein in the NY Times, “Passengers on ‘The Ride’ — a tour bus with floor-to-ceiling windows and nightclub-style audio — tool through Manhattan, encountering such (pre-arranged) sights as a businessman breaking into tap dance, a juggler tossing hot dogs, and a ballerina in [...]
Why Children Need Theater
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged children's theatre, drama, education, learning, little red truck, low-income, missoula, montana, musical, opportunity, pam voth, plays, poor, poverty, rob whitehair, teaching on February 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
A while back I watched the movie The Little Red Truck, a documentary by producer Pam Voth and director Rob Whitehair highlighting the work of the Missoula Children’s Theatre. It was a moving experience. The Missoula (Montana) Children’s Theatre travels by truck from city to city all over America to put on productions with children in [...]
Bilingual Benefits
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alzheimer's, bilingual, brain, cognitive, discovery news, function, jessica marshall, language on February 16, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Like many Swedes, Erik is fluent in several languages and understands others. It’s a riot to hear him “conversing” with Svein. Svein says something in Norwegian. Erik answers in Swedish. Language skill has come in handy for both Erik and Suzanne recently, as they are able to converse with the Honduran worker who is painting [...]
Daily Life as a School
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged children, city, education, experience, experiential learning, knowledge, learning, librado romero, low-income, michael winerip, poor, poverty, school, student, urban on February 15, 2012 | 10 Comments »
A reason that poor children are sometimes unprepared for school is that the words they are starting to read in books may not convey meaning to them. What does it mean to park a car if you have never ridden in a car? The NY Times has a lovely article about one NYC school’s unusual [...]
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