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Archive for March, 2017

Stumbling into Opera

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 16, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Craig T. Mathew / Mathew Imaging
Morris Robinson and Brenton Ryan in L.A. Opera’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio.”

Yesterday my husband and I were talking about Swedenborgianism. I’m not sure why. The little I know comes from an obscure 1876 Wilkie Collins novel called Two Destinies. From that I learned that followers of Swedenborg believe that nothing but trouble can result from trying to avoid your destiny.

Whether or not bad things would have happened to Morris Robinson if he kept running from his destiny, I can’t say, but as Christopher Smith writes in the Los Angeles Times, it sure took the acclaimed bass a long time to embrace it.

“Opera,” writes Smith, “is often called the most irrational art form. Seen through that lens, bass singer Morris Robinson’s unlikely career path makes wonderful sense.

“At a young age, from a family and culture that reveres singing, Robinson aspired to be a drummer instead. He ignored college music scholarships and conservatory programs for a free-ride to play football at a military college. Afterward, bypassing all thought of studying music at grad school, he worked for a Fortune 500 company in regional sales of data storage.

“At 30, in finally attempting to sing professionally, he tried out for the chorus of ‘Aida’ at the Boston Lyric Opera, the biggest company in New England. A week later, the music director handed him music for a solo role, accompanied by a plea: ‘Please don’t screw it up.’

‘A lot of the purists, they don’t believe my story,’ Robinson said. ‘They don’t believe it until they witness it themselves.’ …

“Now 47 and equipped with 18 years of major roles with A-list companies nationally and internationally, Robinson has forged a life path in opera that seems inevitable in retrospect. After all, he was ‘the rare person,’ L.A. Opera music director James Conlon said, ‘born with the great voice where strength predates technique. It’s a round, large voice.’ …

“But throughout his life he seemed to ignore, even actively ward off, singing — though it was always around him.

“Raised in a musical clan in Atlanta, Robinson had a dad, mom and three young sisters who all sang. Around 6, he participated in a church choir and then the Atlanta Boy Choir, alternately immersed in religious and secular music.

“But singing was at best a backdrop, maybe even an obstacle. …

“ ‘To me, at heart, I was a drummer. Because if you’re going to be in a church in the South, there has to be rhythm. It was always about beats, beats, beats.’

“He entered a performing arts high school. His senior year he made all-city band and all-state chorus.

“But all he really cared about? Football. Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing in the high 200s, he was aware ‘the cool guys are out there making plays on the football field while you are wearing your uniforms, marching around at halftime. … Who wants to do that?

“ ‘I had to redeem myself, my masculinity, I guess.’ ”

Read how Robinson kept resisting the inevitable and how destiny got the last say, here.

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Tiny House as a Home’s Library

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Jason Koxvold

Question: What is halfway between the book-sharing Little Free Libraries that are sweeping the country and your town library? Answer: A personal library set apart from your home in a tiny house.

The Today show interviewed an artist whose friends helped him build one, perhaps also securing themselves a place to stay as a guest.

Christina Poletto reports, “In New York’s Ulster County, at the base of the Catskills Mountains, Jason Koxvold’s woodland home has a new addition to the property that is nothing short of stunning. There, tucked among the property’s forest of oak trees, sits a tiny one-room library which holds 2,500 books.

“Koxvold, a British artist based in New York, owns the property and was inspired to carve out a space specifically for solitude and escape. ‘I work from this location and was looking to make a quiet space for writing and reflection,’ Koxvold told TODAY.

“When there’s an overflow of visiting guests, the forest library also serves as an additional bedroom. …

“Koxvold desired a simple, singular structure that he could construct on his own using red oak from the property.

“Using already-felled trees left over from the construction of the main house, cut trees were planed on site into large log sections measuring 8 x 8 feet. After air drying the 12,000 lbs of milled red oak for several seasons, they became the shelving and cubbies that make up the the library’s interior.

“Koxvold was able to complete this structure with the help of eight different friends over the course of a year.

“While the monolithic shape and black exterior is shocking against the natural forest forms, the interior, heated by a single small wood stove, is as warm as it is cozy. A lone picture window looking into the forest is a source of natural light. …

“If you’re lucky enough to be invited as a guest, you’re welcome to leave a private message in one of the books on the shelves.” More.

Nice idea about leaving notes. In Suzanne and Erik’s Harlem apartment, an entire wall was available for written messages. Guests loved it.

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Leaving Literary Success Behind to Be a Farmer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 14, 2017| 2 Comments »

Illustration: Ben Kirchner
Raduan Nassar was 48 and at the height of his literary fame when, in 1984, he announced his retirement. He wanted to become a farmer.

I liked a recent article in the New Yorker about a Brazilian who left the writing life to become a farmer. Did literary perfectionism stress him out too much, or did farming just seem more real?

Alejandro Chacoff has the story.

“In 1973, the Brazilian writer Raduan Nassar quit his job. After six years as editor-in-chief at the Jornal do Bairro, an influential left-wing newspaper that opposed Brazil’s military regime, [he left] and spent a year in his São Paulo apartment, working twelve hours a day on a book, ‘crying the whole time.’ In ‘Ancient Tillage,’ the strange, short novel he wrote, a young man flees his rural home and family, only to return, chastened and a little humiliated, to the place of his childhood.

“ ‘Ancient Tillage’ was published in 1975, to immediate critical acclaim. … In 1978, a second novel appeared in print; Nassar had written the first draft of ‘A Cup of Rage’ in 1970, while living in Granja Viana, a bucolic neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. It, too, was received euphorically, winning the São Paulo Art Critics’ Association Prize (ACPA). …

Last year, Nassar’s two novels were translated into English for the first time, for the Penguin Modern Classics Series. …

“Nassar was forty-eight and at the height of his literary fame when, in 1984, he gave an interview with Folha de São Paulo, the country’s biggest daily newspaper, in which he announced his retirement. He wanted to become a farmer. … The following year, he bought a property of roughly sixteen hundred acres and began to plant soy, corn, beans, and wheat. …

“Nassar said that farming had always been his main occupation, whereas writing had ‘just been another activity.’ But his life in agriculture did not begin smoothly.

“ ‘For the first six years, we got killed; there were only losses.’ … Like his characters, he appears to have found solace in manual labor. ‘My life now is about doing, doing, doing,’ he told an interviewer, in 1996, when asked how he was faring after his literary retirement. …

“Both [Luiz Schwarcz, the editor-in-chief of Companhia das Letras, the country’s main publishing house,] and [Antonio Fernando de Franceschi, a poet and critic who became a close friend of Nassar’s,] believe that Nassar’s decision to quit came not from a waning of interest but from literary perfectionism. ‘He’s a guy who devotes himself so much to the craft that I think it’s hard for him to feel rewarded,’ Schwarcz said.” More here.

I intend to track down his books.

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Recent Grad Hones Coaching Skills with Team Uganda

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 13, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Evan Petty
Kids enjoying the baseball field at the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented near Kampala, Uganda. 

The inimitable Karen Given at WBUR radio’s Only a Game has found another inspiring story to share with listeners. This one is about a Syracuse University grad who found his calling thanks to a youth baseball team in Uganda.

“Back in the spring of 2014, Evan Petty was a senior at Syracuse University. And he was feeling a little anxious.

” ‘Um … the pressure’s starting to kick in at that point,’ Evan says. “I didn’t really know what it is that I was really going to do. I had always really liked sports. I got a journalism degree, but I didn’t work hard enough to turn it into anything.’ …

“After graduation, Evan flew to Fairbanks to write game reports for the Goldpanners — a collegiate summer team. …

” ‘I guess it bought me time. That’s pretty much all it did,’ he says.

“Evan spent that summer thinking about baseball — he’d always loved the game. He thought he’d like to be a coach. But he didn’t have any training or experience. He figured he’d never find a paid job in this country, so he started looking elsewhere.

” ‘So I think that I looked in places like Japan, even, and places in Europe. Spain, they play some baseball. I took some Spanish in high school, maybe I could make something work with that,’ Evan says. ‘But then Uganda came up.’

“Yep. Uganda. A school was looking for an English teacher/assistant baseball coach.

“The Allen VR Stanley International School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented was founded by an American businessman who wants to bring baseball to Uganda. Besides teaching kids math and science and English, the school had another well-publicized goal: to send a team to Williamsport.

“Evan had been watching the Little League World Series on TV since he was 13. He loves it.

“The quality of the play is so high, and everything about it is so emotional and real. It’s raw. Like, it’s so raw. It’s just the best,” he says. …

“Evan hopped on an airplane and flew to Kampala. …

“When Evan saw the baseball team he’d be coaching, he was even more excited. It’s not that the players had a lot of experience. In fact, many of them had none at all.

” ‘Put it this way: Balls were being thrown very fast, and bats were being swung very hard, and players were running very fast,’ Evan says. ‘There was a lot of raw talent everywhere.’ …

“In 2011, the team won the qualifying tournament in Poland, but the players were denied visas to come to the United States. Many of the players don’t have birth certificates. ‘Paperwork is hard in Uganda,’ Evan told me. …

” ‘We had to do a whole lot of stuff and satisfy a whole lot of people and pay a whole lot of money [in 2015 to attend the qualifying games in Poland],’ Evan says. ‘And then we had to win the games, and that was the easy part.’ …

“Uganda was headed back to Williamsport, and they had one simple goal.

” ‘Shock the world,’ Evan says.”

That is what they did. Read more.

Interestingly, the Disney flic Queen of Katwe — about a young female chess prodigy from the Katwe, Uganda, slums — also demonstrates that committed adults and international competitions offer Ugandan children one of their best hopes for rising above challenging circumstances.

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Nonprofit Bookstores

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2017| 5 Comments »

Photo: City of Asylum
City of Asylum Books specializes in translation and world literature. 

With Amazon opening retail bookstores in Greater Boston and elsewhere, the independent bookstores we all love are more threatened than ever. What new models will help them survive?

The Nonprofit Quarterly discusses one idea.

Louis Altman writes, “Conventional wisdom is that the goliath Amazon, the dominant and diversified Internet retailer of everything from books to 7-string zithers has, with unbeatable pricing and almost infinite selection, crushed all brick-and-mortar booksellers in its path. …

“The truth is that independent booksellers are thriving, with 30 percent growth in the number of these stores from 2009–2016, to 2,311 as of 2016. Between 2014 and 2015, independent booksellers saw their market share actually grow from 7 percent of all book sales in 2014 to 10 percent in 2015. …

“The answer may lie with niche-filling shops like Pittsburgh’s new City of Asylum Books, part of a nascent multipurpose cultural center on the city’s North Side called Alphabet City Center. Alphabet City is a consolidated space recently acquired by City of Asylum, a nonprofit arts organization providing sanctuary and forums of expression for exiled writers of all genres from other countries, introducing many unsung voices to the Pittsburgh public through literary community events. …

“The nonprofit bookstore opened … January 14th, offering some 10,000 titles on a wide range of subjects, specializing in translated works and world literature, in 1,200 square feet of space in the Alphabet City building, which includes a bar, restaurant and a venue for readings, performances and workshops. The bookstore sells everything from cookbooks to children’s books to poetry and harbors a giving library, where patrons can take—and give—books for free. …

“Kepler’s Books of Menlo Park, California, [restructured] as a community-owned bookstore, creating a ‘hybrid model’ maintaining operation of the for-profit bookstore, connecting it with a nonprofit arm housing and sponsoring local literary events and presentations for local schools and the community.” More here.

Whether the independent bookstore will find salvation in nonprofit approaches remains to be seen, but creative thinking is sure to be a requirement for longevity. I myself think independents will need to provide services that many used bookstores, particularly nonprofit used bookstores like the Bryn Mawr Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., provide — for example, tracking down out-of-print books for a fee.

My local independent doesn’t offer many extras. It won’t order self-published books for customers, so I am forced to use Amazon if I want one. “Self-published” can include popular books published in England but not yet available in the US through normal channels. Amazon will provide. Why not independents?

There are other issues with my local independent such as shelving two of my three ordered books when they are all the same title, not offering delivery for a fee, and having a website they know is not worth using. But I want the shop to survive, so I order anything from there that it is willing to get for me.

I’d be interested in other people’s experiences and advice for independents.

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Juggling Ballet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 11, 2017| 1 Comment »


Photo: Arnaud Stephenson
Perfectly timed movements create the illusion of weightlessness in performances that combine ballet and juggling.

Artists always seem to be looking for new forms of expression. The Washington Post recently reported on a production that increases the challenges of two precise kinds of movement by performing them in tandem.

Sadie Dingfelder spoke with Sean Gandini, “the creator, the director and one of the performers of ‘4×4: Ephemeral Architectures,’ a mesmerizing clockwork of human bodies and juggling objects flying through space. …

“In the months of rehearsals that took place before the piece’s London premiere in 2015, there were plenty of unintentional ballerina clubbings. …

“When the touring group arrives at a new venue, the first thing the performers do is mark the stage with 60 pieces of colored tape. That’s about twice as many marks as other performances, [and] getting the measurements exactly right is crucial. …

“ ‘I called the show “Ephemeral Architectures” because it’s what I think dancers and jugglers have in common — we are both creating traces in the air, traces that only last for an instant, and then they are gone,’ Gandini says. …

“Despite the challenges, the performers of ‘4×4′ have dropped only a few balls in hundreds of performances,’ [Emma Lister, the show’s artistic coordinator and one of the dancers] says. Additionally, all of the dancers have picked up some juggling skills, and the jugglers have gotten into ballet.

“The marriage of juggling and ballet in ‘4×4: Ephemeral Architectures’ has been so successful, it resulted in one actual marriage. Six months ago, artistic coordinator Emma Lister tied the knot with juggler Sakari Mannisto. The two are now working on a new show together that combines their art forms.

” ‘Being married to a juggler has practical advantages as well as creative ones,’ Lister says.

“ ‘If I’m on the other side of the room and I want to toss him the car keys, I can make any kind of wild throw and he’ll catch it,’ she says. ‘On a day-to-day basis, it can be quite handy.’ ” More here.

I keep thinking that, for better or worse, this period in history should be fertile for artists seeking challenges — and should elicit many forms of juggling.

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Candle-Powered Pipe Organ

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 10, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: Ronald van der Meijs
In January, this candle organ was on exhibit in the Netherlands. 

You may recall my January 2014 post about zebra finches playing instruments at a museum (here) and a December 2016 post on Croatia’s sea organ (here). The sea organ harnessed the tides to push water through narrow passages leading to organ pipes under marble stairs.

How many ways there are to make music! So much need for music!

Today’s post is about an artist who created a candle pipe organ. Lauren Young at Atlas Obscura explains.

“There’s a curious low industrial hum emanating from what used to be a fish market built in 1769. At De Vishal gallery in Haarlem, Netherlands, a large nine-pipe organ operated by burning candles purrs a continuous concert.

“In the video, Dutch artist Ronald van der Meijs shows his elaborate musical mechanism. Inspired by the Muller Organ housed at Grote Kerk church next to the gallery, the series of pipes looks like a massive artillery weapon connected to wooden beam air ducts. The intricate system requires careful maintenance — van der Meijs changes out the candles multiple times a day as they burn.

“For the pipe organ, ‘the candles are the musicians,’ van der Meijs explains. The candles vary in size. As the wax melts, the pitch of each pipe shifts slowly and irregularly. The shortening of the candles causes a vertical movement in each mechanism, pulling a wheel connected to a brass valve at the front end of each pipe. Opening the valves allows for different toned pitches.” More.

The mechanical kookiness makes me smile and reminds me of Rube-Goldberg-esque egg-breaking machines I have known. (See this February 2013 post.)

 

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Connecticut’s Mashantucket Pequot Museum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 9, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: Judy Benson, Day Staff Writer
Kevin McBride, far right, anthropology professor at the University of Connecticut and director of research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, contemplates artifacts uncovered by Hurricane Sandy.

Today I’m linking to a couple articles about the work of Prof. Kevin McBride, director of research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum in Connecticut. The first describes how he found a mutually beneficial way to work with metal detectionists so that details of finds would not be lost.

The partnership is surprising as archaeologists put a high priority on removing artifacts from their surroundings in a scientific way, and are usually at loggerheads with people using metal detectors.

The New York Times, where I read about this, has new firewalls that make it hard to share excerpts of articles like this one, alas, so I scouted out a related article by Judy Benson, a Day staff writer. In this one, Kevin McBride’s team turned up signs of Manisses activity on Block Island after Hurricane Sandy.

Judy Benson wrote, “Each no bigger than a fingernail, the two brown shards easily could have been mistaken for insignificant bits of rock, hardly a fitting reward for a day’s work. But to Kevin McBride and his dozen-member archaeology crew … at Grace’s Cove beach [that was] exactly what all the careful digging, scraping and sifting were about. … They probably are pieces of pottery left by the Manissee tribe that once inhabited the island. …

“McBride has been running archaeological digs here since 1983, but it wasn’t until 2012, when Superstorm Sandy gouged out broad sections of these dunes, that his chance to lead this project — the most comprehensive archaeological study of Block Island that’s ever been done, he said — came along. The state of Rhode Island decided to use about $500,000 of federal storm relief funds earmarked for assessments of cultural resources damaged by the storm to fund archaeological work along the state’s shoreline and the Block Island coast. …

” ‘Sandy did things to this island’s coastline that no one’s ever seen before, stripping away these dunes. The sites we’re focusing on are at risk in the next storm. The artifacts we’re finding will be lost if you don’t pick them up.’ ”

More at the Day, here.

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When the World Is Mud-Luscious

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 8, 2017| 11 Comments »

It is not really spring yet although a weird February tried to fool us with several warm days before handing us back to single-digit temperatures.

There is a period in New England when the weather teeters back and forth between winter and spring — and inevitably brings to mind the e.e. cummings poem “[In Just-].” It’s a happy poem reminding one that as long as there are springs, there will always be excited children running outdoors to play, hollering back at someone in the house, “I don’t need a coat — it’s hot!”

Here is the poem:

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

 2017-sunrise
021217-tree-in-snow-Providence
021217-tree-in-snow-Providence
021817-snow-melting-at-stream
022517-fungus-rock-lichen-woods
022117-thru-the-looking-glass
030217-vinca-rises-from-decay

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A Game to Preserve a Culture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 7, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: Floyd Davidson
Genuine “Eskimo Kiss.” Iñupiat sharing a kunik at a Nalukataq festival in Barrow, Alaska.

For Asakiyume and others interested in inventive efforts to preserve the culture of marginalized groups, this New Yorker story may be of interest.

“Iñupiat people, a tribe native to Alaska, did not have a written language for much of their history,” reports the magazine’s Culture Desk. “Instead, for thousands of years, their culture was passed down orally, often in the form of stories that parents and grandparents would tell and entrust to their children.

“In recent years, those stories, and the lessons and values and history that they contain, have become harder to preserve, as the young people of the tribe, growing up in the modern world, have drifted further and further from traditional ways.

“[A new] video, which originally appeared on ‘The New Yorker Presents‘ (Amazon Originals) and is based on a story by Simon Parkin, is about a recent experiment in transmitting Iñupiat culture through a new medium: a video game … in which an Iñupiat child travels across the wilderness to find the source of the bitter blizzards that have been hitting his village.

“Before they began building the game, E-Line developers travelled up to Barrow, in northern Alaska, in the deep, dark cold of January, to meet with tribe members and to lay the groundwork for the project. The resulting game is called Never Alone. …

“Never Alone was created through a highly collaborative process: ‘We’ve had everybody from eighty-five-year-old elders who live most of the year in remote villages to kids in Barrow High School involved in the project,’ Amy Fredeen, the C.F.O. of E-Line, told Parkin. …

“As Clare Swan, who sits on the tribal council that had to approve the project, recalls, ‘We just said, “Shoot, of course it’s difficult.” Anything that’s worth it is.’ ”

More at the New Yorker, here.

I imagine that elders and students got a thrill out of this project in different ways. I would love to know to what extent their feelings overlapped. Did the elders care more about the preservation aspects and the children about making modern media?

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Wind Powers Dutch Electric Trains

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 6, 2017| 2 Comments »

All Dutch electric trains are now powered by wind energy, the national railway company NS has said.

“Since 1 January, 100% of our trains are running on wind energy,” said NS spokesman, Ton Boon. …

“We in fact reached our goal a year earlier than planned,” said Boon, adding that an increase in the number of wind farms across the country and off the coast of the Netherlands had helped NS achieve its aim.

“[Dutch electricity company Eneco] and NS said on a joint website that around 600,000 passengers daily are ‘the first in the world’ to travel thanks to wind energy. NS operates about 5,500 train trips a day.

“One windmill running for an hour can power a train for 120 miles, the companies said. They hope to reduce the energy used per passenger by a further 35% by 2020 compared with 2005.” More at the Guardian, here.

Meanwhile in London, researchers are looking into solar-powered trains.

As Michael Holder said in BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network, “Imperial College London has partnered with the climate change charity 10:10 to investigate the use of track-side solar panels to power trains. …

“The renewable traction power project will see university researchers look at connecting solar panels directly to the lines that provide power to trains, a move that would bypass the electricity grid in order to more efficiently manage power demand from trains.” More.

I wonder what sounds solar- and wind-powered trains make. Can we still say choo-choo-choo and whoo-oo-OO with our grandchildren? And who will update Thomas the Train?

Photo: Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images
Intercity train arriving at Leiden Central railway station, Netherlands.

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More Sustainable Than Thou

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Frasers Property
Fairwater, developed by Frasers Property, is the largest geothermal community in the southern hemisphere.

These days there’s a lot of talk about “sustainable” daily-living practices and “sustainable” business practices. But let’s be honest: some practices are more sustainable than others.

One monitoring organization that sets a high bar is the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA).

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore wrote recently at the Guardian about projects the council has approved: “In 2016, a new master-planned estate in [Blacktown, near Sydney] became the first residential community in New South Wales to be awarded a top, six-star Green Star community rating by the Green Building Council of Australia.

“Not only that, Fairwater, developed by Frasers Property, is the largest geothermal community in the southern hemisphere. Houses are cooled or heated by a refrigerant that pumps air underground then back to the surface, using less power than air-conditioning or heating and saving residents of a three-bedroom house $500 to $600 a year.

“ ‘There’s this avenue of mature trees with this massive lake and lovely terrace houses – yoga by the lake, cycling paths, all these people walking,’ says the GBCA chief executive, Romilly Madew. …

“Green-star buildings produce, on average, 62% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and use 51% less potable water and 66% less electricity than average buildings in Australia, according to GBCA’s 2013 report The Value of the Green Star.

“Since launching in 2003, hundreds of buildings around the country have been certified for the rating system and 120,000 people are now moving into Green Star communities. …

“The key is looking at the project holistically, says Madew. ‘It’s about going back to that old adage of community: people, walkability, liveability, places for the kids to play. [We want to] change the way people think about how they live.’

“Developers, ultimately, ‘are there to sell house and land packages – so they’re not going to be successful unless they’re building something people want to buy. Take “sustainability” out and ask what [buyers] want. They want something close to amenities – schools, public transport, shops and parks. And a home that is cheap to run.’ ” Read about other sustainable projects in Australia here.

Hat tip to ArtsJournal.com, a great source of stories.

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Help for Vets in Trouble

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 4, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
From left, Army veteran Kevin Faherty speaking with Paul Connor, veteran services coordinator, and Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian in January.

A sad fact of war is that those who serve too often come back suffering from emotional trauma or addiction.

Fortunately, there are understanding people who can help them move on. We just need more of them.

Kevin Cullen at the Boston Globe describes what one Massachusetts sheriff is doing to make veterans’ lives more hopeful.

“For the past year, with hardly any attention, Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian and his staff have developed an innovative approach that is transforming lives for the better, lowering recidivism rates and raising the odds that those who have served their country can become more responsible, productive citizens.

“[Jan. 13] marked the first anniversary of the Housing Unit for Military Veterans at the Middlesex jail and house of correction, the first of its kind in New England, and really the only one quite like it nationwide. Its acronym is HUMV, or Humvee, an armored vehicle that once protected many of the younger vets in the unit. …

“Koutoujian tapped Paul Connor, an Army veteran, to run the unit. They got a waiver from the state, so that pre-trial prisoners and inmates already serving their sentences could be housed together. The HUMV is set up like a barracks, bunks lined up in the self-contained unit. …

“The men in the unit are broken down into squads, sharing chores and other duties, which builds camaraderie and accountability. …

“Connor’s veteran status makes a real connection with those in the unit. His decade of sobriety, meanwhile, makes him a role model. Like the vast majority of inmates in the general population, most of the vets in the HUMV have struggled with alcohol and substance abuse. …

“Amy Bonneau, a social worker from the Boston Vets Center, runs a support group at the HUMV.

” ‘For a lot of these guys, their underlying issues can be traced back to their service,’ she said. ‘If we don’t treat what got them here, they end up coming back. What we see is the camaraderie that this unit fosters makes them more willing to take the treatment seriously. It’s more than helping themselves. They don’t want to let down their brothers.’

“Connor, still a captain in the National Guard, puts it in terms that everybody in the unit understands.

“ ‘In boot camp, they break you down,’ he said. ‘A lot of these guys come in here broken. We are building them back up.’ ”

More here.

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Booksellers in Africa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 3, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: Addis Fortune
A passerby looks at what’s on sale at a sidewalk bookshop.

A love of reading appears to be growing in Ethiopia. According to Mahlet Workayehu at Addis Fortune and All Africa, “It is a common sight to have people carrying around books on the roads and selling them to people sitting in cars or people walking on the streets. …

” ‘Now people hanging out at bars and khat stores are buying books from us,’ says Addis, a book vendor.

“The cost of books in Addis, with the average price of a fiction novel book by a local author coming in around 80 Br [about $3.25], has increased in the past two years. …

“The people credited for expanding the readership of books in Addis are the mobile vendors. They walk around with books in their hands stacked all the way up to their neck, approaching any and everyone to buy a book of them. There are close to 1000 mobile vendors roaming the streets of Addis.

“Addis is a mobile vendor; he has been selling books for five years. Although he is not literate, Addis knows all the titles of the books he carries, whether it be in Amharic or English.” More here.

That bookseller’s lack of literacy really struck me. I work as a volunteer with adult refugees, some of whom never had any schooling and are eager to learn. Book vendor Addis is so near and yet so far from the joy of books.

(For fun, read Roger Duvoisin’s storybook Petunia, about the goose who thought she was wise because she carried around a book. I don’t accuse Ethiopian book vendors of being like Petunia, but I do wish someone could help them learn to read. Of all people, I imagine, they would most enjoy being literate.)

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Buffalo’s Beautiful, Unused Train Station

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 2, 2017| 5 Comments »

Photo: Luke Spencer
Inside the main concourse of the abandoned art deco Buffalo, New York, train station. 

It seems everyone loves old art deco buildings, but no one knows how to preserve them. At least that is the feeling I get listening to the endless discussions of the future of Providence’s Superman Building, so-called because it looks like the Daily Planet building from the 1950s television series.

Meanwhile, as Luke Spencer writes at Atlas Obscura, preservationists in Buffalo, New York, are holding out hope for an art deco “train station, lying forlorn and mostly forgotten … the old Buffalo Central Terminal.

“Opened in 1929 for the New York Central Railroad, the Buffalo Central Terminal was every bit as grand and opulent as Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, Philadelphia’s 30th Street station and Washington DC’s Union Station.

“These were the days when Buffalo was known as the Queen City, built on the strength of automobiles, livestock, steel, and other heavy industries prospering along the seam of the Erie Canal, connecting New York to the Great Lakes. Buffalo thrived to such an extent it was chosen to host the prestigious 1901 Pan American World’s Fair. At this point, Buffalo was the eighth-largest city in the United States. … In its heyday, Buffalo Central Terminal was servicing 200 trains a day.

“But the decline in Buffalo’s economic fortunes, and the rise of domestic airlines and automobiles, spelled the end of the grand Terminal. In the early hours of the morning of October 28, 1979, the last Lake Shore Limited train service heading west left Buffalo. The grand old Terminal was never used again.

“For decades, the building was left abandoned, silently falling apart, while the surrounding neighborhood similarly declined. But the spirit of the Nickel City is strong. No more so than in the recent efforts of the non-profit, Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC), which has been fighting to not only preserve the Terminal, but restore it to its original magnificence. …

“The building itself would need extensive repairs. Forty years of neglect have seen much of the original fixtures either stolen or stripped, particularly in the mid 1980s, when the Terminal was sold off in a foreclosure sale. …

“Perhaps the best chance for the Terminal’s rejuvenation lies with Canadian property developer Harry Stinson, who was named as the designated developer of the site by the City of Buffalo and the CTRC in 2016.” More at Atlas Obscura, here.

It’s a treat to see historic buildings saved and turned to new and profitable uses. Let’s keep tabs on this one.

Photo: Luke Spencer
Is this the prison staircase in the opening scene of Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens? Oh, guess not.

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