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Archive for June, 2011

Birthday Week

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 16, 2011|

Not to give away anyone’s exact birthday or age, I just want to say that Birthday Week in our family is fast approaching for Suzanne, John, and me and is associated with the ruby birthstone. Both Suzanne and I wear Luna & Stella jewelry items that include a ruby.

Some years ago, before Suzanne knew about birthstones, her dad took this birthday picture on our front steps in upstate New York.

She had just turned two. The T-shirt is French.

Please note that you can comment on this blog by sending e-mail to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com. I will post comments.

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Chinglish

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 16, 2011|

I first read about Oliver Radtke and his website dedicated to preserving Chinglish in around 2006. Radtke was alarmed that some of the more charming English translations of signs were disappearing in China prior to the Beijing Olympics. He elicited the help of international visitors to China, requesting them to e-mail their pictures to him for posting. As I went to Shanghai in early 2007, I was able to join the fun. Radtke used a photograph I took of an escalator sign in his first Chinglish book.

My sign said “Keep your legs.” Other samples included signs in parks, like “Show mercy to the slender grass.” Menus, of course, were great hunting grounds, and Radtke posted numerous examples, including “man and wife lung slice” and “advantageous noodle.”

Radtke doesn’t have a corner on the market,, though. Many people have been having fun with Chinglish over the years. Read more at Wikipedia.

Of course, I would sound much more ridiculous trying to speak or write Chinese — or any other language, for that matter. I admire anyone who launches into such foreign terrain. But I do think there is something fascinating and instructive about how speakers of other native tongues use one’s language. I always appreciate the more awkward translations for how they show a different culture’s thinking.

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Paul Nagel, cont’d

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2011|

I blogged in May about the late Paul Nagel, the great biographer of the John Adams family and a friend from the years my husband and I spent in Minneapolis.

Today his son sent a lovely memorial piece by Paul’s longtime buddy Norbert Hirschhorn. Bert’s article appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Read it here. Bert is a physician who has written investigative medical articles on the real illnesses that likely killed historic figures. He is also  a poet. His website and photo are here. He divides his time between London and Beirut, where his wife is a professor at the American University. The following poem, written about a period he spent in Finland, might be an elegy for Paul.

Finnish Autumn

by Norbert Hirschhorn

Leaves flee their trees. Gold coins strewn across
woodland paths turn black, rain-smashed to dross.

Silver birches’ ciliate tips outside my window
incised against the sky like intaglio.

Bohemian waxwings rise in flocks, take flight –
maple leaves mottled by black-spotted blight.

Bone-white horizon, a full setting moon;
bone-white the sun rising into the brume.

I am worried, curious: the coming chill –
mythic, drear – augury of a world… gone still.

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Fun with Street Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 14, 2011|

About a year ago, I read an article in the Boston Globe about an elusive British street artist known as Banksy. Some Banksy-style art had appeared on a restaurant wall alongside a parking lot in Chinatown, and rumors were flying that Banksy himself had snuck into Boston under cover of darkness to make his mark.

My office is quite near Chinatown, so with very few clues, I set out one lunch hour to find the art. A woman thought I looked lost. She was sure she knew where the restaurant mentioned in the newspaper was located. She didn’t actually, but I followed her a while and had a nice chat. She was amazed to hear what I was looking for: “Banksy? Banksy was here?!” It took a couple lunch hours, but I finally got this picture.

And I wasn’t the only one taking pictures. The parking lot attendant looked very annoyed. A year later the art is covered with ordinary graffiti, sprayed-on tags. I never did hear if it was an authentic Banksy, but I really like it.

If you want to know more about street art in general and Banksy in particular, see the offbeat documentary “Exit through the Gift Shop,” in which Banksy has to come to LA to rescue a street-art exhibition that takes in an awful lot of people.

 

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Art Opens Up the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2011|

We watched a couple unusual documentaries last night and last weekend. Often by the time films are available on Netflix, all I remember about the review is that someone highly recommended them. I know only that we will get a big surprise.

“Marwencol” and “Waste Land” were amazing surprises. They turned out to have something in common, too — the idea that art can lift people from despair, help them see things in a way that opens up their world. What was different between the movies was that for the troubled guy who created art in “Marwencol,” showing his work in a NYC gallery is quite beside the point of his healing process and probably the last thing he needs.

The movie is beautifully executed, but one has the sense that the young filmmakers who think the protagonist will benefit from the big-time art world don’t understand psychology very well.

The protagonist of “Waste Land,” successful Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, although equally idealistic, understands his subjects better, having experienced a life similar to theirs in his impoverished childhood. He decides to combine an art project with helping “garbage pickers” in the world’s biggest landfill, in Rio. Getting to know a few of the workers really well, he develops tremendous admiration for them and their deep dignity. He pays a few to work with him on giant portraits on themselves, portraits that play on the themes of some famous paintings. They use recyclables to complete the images, which are then photographed and shown in galleries and at auction. The proceeds come back to the people and help them both individually and collectively.

But the biggest transformation is not monetary but rather what Vik anticipated based on his own life experience — that by seeing things in a new way, they would get new ideas about themselves and their possibilities.

 

 

 

 

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Elizabeth Warren

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2011|

Have you been reading about Elizabeth Warren, the temporary head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? People say she is too controversial to be approved by the Senate and that maybe her employee, Raj Date, a former banker, would be a good compromise candidate. Maybe so, but I just want to tell you about the extraordinary consumer advocate that I know Elizabeth Warren to be.

As a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert on bankruptcy, she has worked tirelessly to reverse the erosion of the of the middle class and lower-income families that has occurred over the last few decades. The CFPB was really based on her work, and she is the right person for the job. Growing up among a lot of older brothers, she learned to argue for herself and be persuasive. I have sat in meetings and heard her talk about her research and outreach, and my jaw just dropped. She is so passionate, and her arguments are so clear and incisive. She is capable of persuading many others who think they have different positions, because she always can find the common interest. But I think the country needs a consumer advocate who doesn’t back down.

Elizabeth Warren has a powerful effect on people. One day several years ago, I was standing in a grocery checkout line and by chance I overheard the cashier telling a customer that when she was thinking of filing for bankruptcy, she contacted Elizabeth Warren and received energetic help — for free. Later she would e-mail Warren anytime and get a response and advice. Probably Warren can’t answer such e-mails now, but I will check with that cashier next time I see her.

If Elizabeth Warren hired Raj Date, then he is a good guy. But if he is a real consumer advocate, I don’t see that his chances of being approved by the Senate are any greater than hers.

Comments may be sent to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com. Luna & Stella is apolitical, but Suzanne said I could write about anything that interests me, and that is what I have been doing.

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Hang Your Art in the Greenway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2011|

Earlier this week, I was walking in the Greenway and noticed that new sod had been placed and roped off.

The sign said, “Grass is resting but feel free to hang your art on the rope.” I thought, “Wow, someone in the Greenway Conservancy is really thinking!”

Today I came back. I believe I was the first to hang my art on the rope.

The art is a copy of a collage I made for a greeting card. Actually for a sympathy card when my Aunt Maggie died. She liked purple. I enjoy making greeting cards from collage materials — postcards, magazine art, brochures. I collect these scraps all the time, and when I’m gearing up to make a card for someone, I sift through and pull out pieces that remind me of the person. If I really like the card a lot, I make copies.

A shot of the original card is below.

Comments may be sent to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com.

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Summer Concerts in South Station

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2011|

For several years now, there has been a concert series right in the middle of all the comings and goings at Boston’s busiest Amtrak Station. Sometimes chamber music is played, sometimes it’s movie music, sometimes it’s cabaret. The concerts go from 11:30 to 12:30, and people just wander in and wander out. It’s great to see the look of surprise on travelers’ faces and the cellphone cameras being whipped out. Chairs are set up for those who want to sit to listen, or to eat their lunch. This year’s schedule is here.

Today we heard jazz harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, who has a website with a great URL, www.hipharp.com. She plays a small, 11-pound, blue electric harp from France and dances and sings while playing blues and jazz and songs she wrote. She has been called the Jimi Hendrix of harp and had us all singing along.

See the demo. It starts out with an original song that she also performed in South Station today.

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Mysterious Sound in the Woods

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2011|

Last weekend my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson stayed in a cabin near Groton, New Hampshire, because John was going to be in a triathlon (swimming, biking, running) the next day. The cabin was in the woods near a lake. In the night, they heard a strange sound, and although she had never seen a moose, my daughter-in-law had a theory that it was a moose. When she got home, she did an Internet search, and sent me a little audio of the sound they heard in their cabin. Here it is.

If you e-mail me at suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com, I will use your comments in a post.

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Waiting for Superman, cont’d

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2011|

Having blogged about the troubling documentary “Waiting for Superman” here, I thought you might be interested in hearing about a school district that has found one way to overcome a significant barrier to quality education.

The documentary’s critique of U.S. public education centers on the inadequacy of teacher evaluation and the near impossibility of firing bad teachers.

Montgomery County (MD) doesn’t have that problem. Can you guess why?

Deep, broad collaboration. Critical constituencies are in on the evaluation and the decisions about coaching and firing.

A June 5 NY Times story by Michael Winerip, “Helping Teachers Help Themselves,” explains.

“The Montgomery County Public Schools system here has a highly regarded program for evaluating teachers, providing them extra support if they are performing poorly and getting rid of those who do not improve. The program, Peer Assistance and Review — known as PAR — uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel — made up of eight teachers and eight principals — can vote to fire the teacher. … In the 11 years since PAR began, the panels have voted to fire 200 teachers, and 300 more have left rather than go through the PAR process, said Jerry D. Weast, the superintendent of the Montgomery County system, which enrolls 145,000 students, one-third of them from low-income families. In the 10 years before PAR, he said, five teachers were fired. ‘It took three to five years to build the trust to get PAR in place,’ he explained.”  Read more here.

Having started out my work life as a teacher, I feel pretty strongly that teachers have been given a bad rap lately and that most are experienced, creative, and deeply dedicated (and overworked and underpaid). My daughter-in-law is also a teacher.

But there is no doubt that the bad apples are hard to fire and that every year that they get away with bad teaching turns thousands of children off the whole idea of education, to the lasting detriment of the nation. So I hope everyone will think about the PAR program described in the Times and how they might help influence school policy.

I will post comments sent to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com.

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Staying in the Fray

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 8, 2011|

Got to love this unemployment story on a 17-month job search by an older worker.
“Count 97-year-old Mary Poncin of Warwick (RI) among the long-term unemployed who have finally found work. Poncin has been hired as a greeter at Kent Hospital after nearly 17 months of being unemployed. She was laid off in January 2010 from a retail sales job. Her first job was as a waitress at a diner in the 1930s, earning $1 a day.” AP

If I were aged and sick and were fortunate enough to be greeted by her at the hospital, I think it would give me hope. Good for Kent Hospital to see a good thing!

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Siblings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 7, 2011|

When Suzanne and Erik got married, it was a great occasion for photographs of family members who are seldom all in the same place at the same time. My sisters-in-law are especially good at seizing these opportunities, and Lisa made sure I lined up with my siblings at the rehearsal dinner. Here we are.

The brother on the left is usually found in Wisconsin, where he does research on retention of organ transplants. I’m the short one. The next brother lives in California and writes business books. My sister is an MD in New York City. I can’t remember when was the previous time we were all together.

I used to tell stories about one Sammy Seal to the boys. (They were older than my sister. She got other stories.) For reasons that have become clearer over the years, the stories were mostly about Sammy escaping from his pen at night and having adventures and then coming home. Recently, I saw a cute video that reminded me of those stories. I call this short clip “Freedom? Freedom!”

 

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Fathers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 7, 2011|

One of the most fun things about being a mom, I think, is seeing your grownup child developing into a really great parent. Here is proud papa John when our grandson was only a few months old. And here is John’s dad, a proud grandpa, yesterday.

And while we are on the subject of fathers, I don’t mind telling you that Suzanne’s company, Luna & Stella, has just added an intriguing gift for men — cufflinks designed to hold birthstones of your choice, a bit like a locket. You can get the cufflinks with birthstones of the dad’s loved ones, or you can get them empty and ready for your own mementos. Here’s what they look like.  I could picture small treasures from children in them or a miniature fishing fly for a fisherman or baseball memorabilia — whatever the imagination suggests.

Send comments to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com. I will post your comment in an entry.

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The Urge to Invent a Language

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2011|

I’ve been thinking about a book I read earlier this year, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and The Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, by Arika Okrent. I thought it was a hoot! Even though some parts were impenetrable to anyone not a linguist like the author, I really enjoyed it. Okrent is a very good writer and knows how to choose and lead up to the funniest aspect of a constructed language — or of the inventor. I learned a ton of random facts, and I thought I knew it all, having a decent knowledge of Esperanto. Turns out, there are more than 900 known invented languages. One that was invented to express a woman’s perspective is Laadan and has words like this: “radiidin, non-holiday, a time allegedly a holiday but actually so much a burden because of work and preparations that it is a dreaded occasion; especially when there are too many guests and none of them help.”

Okrent gets into the wildly varied reasons people invent a language and why natural languages are more flexible. She covers some languages in depth (like Star Trek’s Klingon, invented only for artistic fun). I loved the part about the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation asking “semiotician” Thomas Sebeok in the 1980s how to post warnings that would last 10,000 years on waste-storage sites. Sebeok recommended posting signs in all known languages, plus pictures, icons, and all sorts of symbols, and having the keepers every 250 years rethink the warnings based on current messaging. He also recommended creating a spooky mythology around the site that would be passed on from “priest” to “priest” beyond the time they could be expected to know the reason for it. All they would know is the “curse.”

Too many great tidbits to describe here. I laughed all the way through.

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Asakiyume writes: Your mention of Thomas Sebeok’s foray into how to convey a warning about nuclear waste sites reminded me of this article, “This Place Is Not a Place of Honor,” by  Alan Bellows, which includes interesting images designed to convey horror and stay-away-itiveness.

The poetry of it–it horrifies viscerally.
This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

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Among the Artists

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2011|

I met my friend Mary Ann at the famous management journal where I met Asakiyume. Like Asakiyume, Mary Ann has too big a spirit for business management articles and has for the last 10 years been in a more artistic field. From soup to nuts, she edits craft books for Quarry — that is, she finds the authors and designs and edits the books all the way through page proofs. She has been instrumental in moving the field from how-to manuals for specific projects to a broader and more intriguing perspective. Her approach can be summarized as “here are some ideas about how to do a creative project; take the ball and run with it.”
        Mary Ann was in the area last week to check in at Quarry headquarters. We arranged to meet yesterday in a suitable venue — an independent book store, with a nice coffee bar and extras like muffins and Vietnamese salad rolls.
        It sure is fun to talk to artistic friends. Mary Ann gave me some great leads on websites that I have already shared with friends. Here is a fun one belonging to Massachusetts-based artist agent Lilla Rogers. Another one, Urban Sketchers, contains wonderful sketches from all over the world. (Perhaps you would like to add your own.)
        Mary Ann’s latest craft book is Playing with Books, by Jason Thompson, and it looks wonderful. Check out the book on Jason’s website, Rag and Bone.
        Mary Ann and I were happy to see that the book store we chose to meet in had some Quarry books. But later in the day I checked out a craft store in Concord (MA) and was disappointed that their books were mostly from another company.
        In spite of my disappointment about the books they carry, I love this craft store. It has a great new concept. You can work on crafts there and just dabble, just try things out, while having a nice sandwich or George Howells coffee. Because the idea is to try out the equipment and materials and find out if you want to go deeper after some dabbling, the store is called Dabblers.
        This blog is a project of birthstone jewelry company Luna & Stella. I will post comments of readers who contact me at suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com.

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