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Leaving Boston for Murano Glassmaking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Wave Murano Glass.
Roberto Beltrami, pictured, is one of the youngest Murano glass masters, founding his workshop when he was just 25 years old. 

I had a memorable trip to Europe when I was 16, and one of the highlights was Venice and the glassmaking island of Murano. Have you been there?

Rebecca Cairns reports at CNN that the ancient craft of Murano glassmaking has benefited from new and younger talent.

“Born in the Italian town of Brescia, Roberto Beltrami grew up just a few hours’ drive from Venice and the island of Murano, world-famous for producing beautiful glassware. But it was nearly 4,000 miles away in Boston, Massachusetts, that he first came across the art of glassblowing. …

“It was 2011, and Beltrami, then a sophomore physics student at Boston University, was captivated by an exhibition of the work of American artist Dale Chihuly. Known for pushing the boundaries of contemporary glassblowing, Chihuly’s pursuit of his craft has taken him around the globe, including a stint in Murano in the 1960s.

“Beltrami visited the island on his summer break, taking up a class in glassblowing. That class turned into an apprenticeship, and the summer turned into a year. Beltrami quit university, trading lecture halls for roaring furnaces, sweating it out in centuries-old workshops, and studying under some of the world’s most renowned glassblowing masters.

“At one time, Murano was the global leader in glassmaking, renowned for unparalleled quality, style, and innovation, including the invention of ‘cristallo,‘ clear glass. …

“With a long legacy of closely guarding their trade secrets, workshops in Murano are reluctant to welcome newcomers, said Beltrami, 34. ‘Everybody was afraid you were going to steal their job, and nobody wanted to teach you anything.’ …

“Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, Beltrami decided to strike out on his own. In 2017, the then-25-year-old started his own workshop, Wave Murano Glass.

“Now with a team of 20, many of them in their twenties and thirties, Beltrami — believed to be the youngest glass master in Murano — is ushering in a new generation of artisans. …

“In Venice, glass has been manufactured for over 1,000 years. To prevent fires from the hot furnaces and keep trade secrets from escaping the city, all the glass factories were moved to Murano in 1291, where they’ve remained since.

“In addition to the invention of cristallo, Murano became well-known for its ability to add vibrant color to clear glass.

“ ‘It’s not so easy to have different colors of glass together and have them match chemically,’ said Beltrami, explaining that each shade uses a unique element — such as cobalt for purple-blue, lead for pale yellow, or tellurium for a pink tint — which expand and contract at different rates when they heat and cool. …

“The size and weight of many of the glass objects require at least one person to hold the pipe and turn the molten glass, while another shapes it, and another person may be required to torch the glass to keep it pliable, or add embellishments. ‘It’s like a choreography,’ Beltrami added. …

“The small factories struggle to compete on large-scale industrial orders, said Beltrami. Murano instead focuses on luxury and artistic glassware, although that too has been threatened by an influx of counterfeit goods. … The industry has been further impacted by a series of crises, including the financial crash of 2008, the Covid-19 pandemic, and rising gas prices. But despite the challenges, Beltrami is optimistic about the future of the craft.

“A major problem he saw across the factories he worked in previously was antiquated equipment and inefficient processes. So, at Wave Murano Glass, he introduced a variety of modern technologies, including streamlining administrative workflows with AI-enabled software and introducing more energy-efficient furnaces.

“Designed in the US, these furnaces capture heat that is typically lost via exhaust fumes and reuse it to preheat the air going into the burner, reducing gas usage by 80% compared to furnaces of a similar size, said Beltrami.

“According to Beltrami, Murano’s factories have historically worked on small-scale industrial orders, with many rejecting commissions of less than a few hundred but unable to cater for those of a few thousand. Seeing a missed opportunity, he set up his furnaces to be flexible, allowing Wave to cover anything from one-off pieces, to a few dozen, up to 1,200 pieces.

“While the bulk of Wave’s output is white label products for brands, designers, and artists, up to 10% of the company’s turnover comes from classes and tours, which Beltrami hopes can share the art of glass blowing with a wider audience.

“His efforts have already paid off. Beltrami has made a point of offering internships to young, enthusiastic talent from around the globe, many of whom are now employed at Wave, including several women, who are underrepresented in the industry.

“For Beltrami, finding new talent is an essential step in preserving the craft he’s come to love — and continuing its legacy of artistry and innovation.”

More at CNN, here. No paywall. Great videos of glassmaking.

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How Trash Collection Alleviates Poverty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 9, 2025| 9 Comments »

Photo: Swach Cooperative, Pune.
More than 70% of Swach waste collectors in Pune, India, are women.

I like stories about win-win-wins. Today Shatakshi Gawade writes at the Guardian about a cooperative in Pune, India, that is diverting waste from the landfill and cleaning a city while also alleviating poverty. Trash collection is a job the mostly female workforce fought hard to retain when the city failed to renew the contract.

“Three decades ago, Rajabai Sawant used to pick and sort waste on the streets of Pune with a sack on her back. The plastic she collected from a public waste site would be sold for some money that saved her children from begging.

“Today, dressed in a dark green jacket monogrammed with the acronym Swach (solid waste collection and handling) over a colourful sari, the 53-year-old is one among an organized group of waste collectors and climate educators who teach residents in urban Pune how to segregate and manage waste, based on a PPPP – a pro-poor private public partnership.

“ ‘Even though we were earning money and running our homes by collecting and selling recyclable waste in the past, our job was not valued and we were not respected for the work we did,’ Sawant says as she pushes a loaded four-wheeled metal cart up a gentle slope. …

“Swach was set up in 2005 by a trade union of waste pickers, Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), which was not in favor of contractor-run private models and envisioned a scheme that enhanced waste collectors’ work instead of displacing them.

“Lakshmi Narayan, one of the co-founders of Swach and KKPKP, says: ‘Contractor models typically end up hiring males and displacing the people who traditionally did the work. We strongly felt that a person who has been doing the work for so long brings in the knowledge, experience and intelligence to handle the material in a particular way, and should be the first claimant of that work.’ …

“Rehabilitating the waste workers by teaching them a new skill such as embroidery, and taking them away from their work of waste collection, segregation and sale was not the long-term solution, Narayan says. ‘The waste sector generates a large number of jobs not just in Pune but across the world.’ …

“Through detailed discussions with waste pickers, KKPKP realized that they were diverting a significant amount of waste from the landfill. Segregation at source, plus recycling material recovered from the waste, was contributing to climate change mitigation by minimizing landfill waste, reducing greenhouse gas (particularly methane) emissions, lowering the demand for scarce raw materials and saving taxpayers money by reducing solid waste management costs. …

“The waste sector is the third-largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases, and Swach calculates that its work saves 100,000 tons of CO2 every year.

“In negotiations over a global plastics treaty in Busan, South Korea, last year, the chair’s text highlighted that countries should take measures to ‘promote a just transition for plastic waste management workers, especially waste pickers and other informal workers.’

“Narayan says: ‘We have argued that waste collection itself is green work but it’s not necessarily decent work. And there has to be a way to make it decent.’ Narayan says the Swach model helped transition the work of waste collectors from the informal sector, in which they spent their whole day at public bins and roadsides in tattered clothes, to a more formalized setup, where they began wearing a uniform and started speaking directly to residents.

“Rani Shivsharan, a waste picker and board member of Swach, says: ‘We did not know how to talk to people, since we had never been included in society. We wouldn’t have dared to talk in front of even two people, but now we can fearlessly articulate our demands and thoughts with conviction in front of an audience of 500.’ “

Read at the Guardian, here, about current threats to employment of the traditional waste picker. This story is an abridged version of a piece originally published by Mongabay.

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Kiln Design Can Fight Air Pollution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 8, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/Anadolu.
In Bangladesh, there’s hope that stacking bricks in a new way in kilns — in a zig-zag pattern that increases airflow — will ensure that coal-fired kilns operate more efficiently and with less pollution.

Too often I think in black and white terms, right and wrong, good and bad. There are plenty of times times when things are that clear, but not always. Life is complicated.

Take the issue of burning coal in a poor country. At this point in its history, Bangladesh, for example, doesn’t have many choices. Bricks house the population, and coal-fired kilns are what’s available. So although coal is bad, just reducing some of the pollution will have to be good enough for now.

Jonathan Lambert reports at National Public Radio, NPR, “During the dry winter months in Bangladesh, thousands of workers shovel millions of tons of coal into kilns across the country. As columns of hand-packed bricks bake and harden, dark plumes of smoke pour out of more than 8,000 smokestacks that mark the skyline of both rural and urban areas.

” ‘It’s a lot of black smoke, impacting the workers and nearby villagers, but also the overall air quality of the region,’ said Sameer Maithel, an engineer with Greentech Knowledge Solutions, a consulting firm in Delhi, India.

“Bangladesh’s air consistently ranks among the most polluted on Earth. Brick kilns contribute anywhere from 10 to 40% of the tiny particles that make up that pollution. Those particles can enter our lungs and even our bloodstream, causing health problems, including respiratory diseases, stroke and even cognitive problems.

“But something as simple as stacking the bricks a different way could put a significant dent in that pollution, according to a new study of over 275 kilns published in Science by Maithel and his colleagues.

” ‘This is wonderful evidence of how simple low cost interventions can have a big impact on energy use,’ said William Checkley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University who wasn’t involved in the study. ‘If we can implement these, we could have a significant impact in energy use and emissions, improving air quality throughout southeast Asia.’

“Bricks are the main building block for Bangladesh. The densely populated and rapidly urbanizing country produces nearly 30 million bricks a year – more than 90% from loosely regulated, coal-burning kilns.

” ‘It’s quite simple and inexpensive to set up traditional-style brick kilns, so they’ve just proliferated,’ said Nina Brooks, a global health researcher at Boston University.

“The process goes something like this: First, dun-colored clay bricks are molded with a wooden box and stacked in the sun to dry. Next, hundreds of thousands of bricks are stacked in the firing chamber and covered with ash. Then, workers shovel lots and lots of coal as the bricks fire, firming them up.

” ‘The combustion efficiency of these brick kilns is really low,’ said Brooks, meaning they end up burning a lot more coal than they need to, ‘Which is why they’re so heavily polluting here.’

“Each kiln can employ up to 200 workers. They’re the most directly impacted by the smoke, with one study finding nearly 80% report some kind of respiratory problems. But they’re not the only ones. Kilns are often close to densely populated areas, adding to the smog that comes from city life.

“While there are regulations on where kilns can and can’t operate, they’re not always followed, said Brooks. ‘We found that 77% of brick kilns are illegally located too close to a school.’

“Modern, high-tech kilns produce substantially less pollution, but they’re up to 25 times more expensive to build and operate. ‘They’ve not really taken off,’ said Brooks.

“Instead, the team looked for solutions that would be easier and cheaper for the average brick producer to adopt.

“In his decades of working with brick kiln owners in India as a consulting engineer, Maithel has noticed questionable practices.

“Many kiln operators pack too many bricks in the kiln too tightly, he said. That tight spacing chokes out oxygen flow, which is needed for efficient burning. It also means hot coals get stuck at the top of the stack instead of falling to the bottom, leading some bricks to be overbaked and others not fired enough. …

“As an energy systems engineer, Maithel knew that a few simple changes could really help. Simply stacking the bricks in a zig-zag pattern that increases airflow and ensuring coal gets delivered more consistently should help the kilns operate more efficiently, he said. ‘The better you are able to provide fuel and air mixing, the probability of black smoke will be less.’

“To see if such simple interventions could help reduce air pollution and boost profits, the team planned a massive experiment across 276 kilns. One group of kiln owners and workers were taught how to implement these interventions. Another group got the same training plus info on how the changes would save money. The control group got no training.”

Read about results that benefited both the air and the kiln operators at NPR, here.

Learn how to protect NPR and other public media here.

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A Peace Village

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 7, 2025| 3 Comments »

A classroom in the village of Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, an Israeli village where Jews and Palestinians live together to promote peace.

Here’s an impossibly hopeful story that is in danger because its approach to peace is not the same as the government’s.

Chris Osuh reported at the Guardian in May, “An Israeli village where Jews and Palestinians live together to promote peace is in danger of losing vital overseas funding following Israeli government proposals to impose an 80% tax on foreign donations, residents have warned.

“Leading figures from the unique community – Wahat Salam/Neve Shalom, which translates as ‘Oasis of Peace’ – flew to the UK [in May] in a visit hosted by the Co-operative Group, which is calling for the UK government to support peace-building cooperatives worldwide with foreign and development policy.

“Samah Salaime, an Israeli Palestinian, and Nir Sharon, an Israeli Jew, co-direct the village’s educational institutions, which include the School for Peace for activists and a primary school where 250 Jewish and Palestinian children learn each other’s histories, in Arabic and Hebrew.

“The co-directors addressed a parliamentary round table, attended by Labour and Co-operative MPs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) … in a visit coinciding with the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were dispossessed. On Saturday, the pair addressed the Co-operative Group’s annual general meeting in Manchester.

“Before the meeting, Salaime told the Guardian of the threat posed by a bill being debated in Israel’s Knesset. If it became law, it would decimate the finances of NGOs in Israel that receive funding from foreign states. …

“ ‘The biggest supporters for Wahat Salam come from the UK, from the Co-op, our friends in Switzerland, in Sweden, in the US. We don’t have any local Israeli support for our project … financially and ideologically, they are against us.’ …

“Conceived by Bruno Hussar, a Jewish Catholic priest, the village started with a handful of residents in 1978, in ‘no man’s land’ between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

“It now has 300 residents, half Israeli Palestinians and half Israeli Jews, including academics and tech professionals, with a waiting list of about 200 families.

There is no synagogue or mosque: instead, residents pray or meditate in a dome called the Court of Silence.


“Surrounded by olive trees, communal life in the village revolves around committee meetings where the co-operative’s decisions are voted on, shared meals, the swimming pool and the Garden of Rescuers, which commemorates heroes of global catastrophes. There is a guesthouse in the village, and children from surrounding areas are bussed in to attend the school.

“Salaime said: ‘We were attacked by settlers three times. … We have all kinds of unfortunate incidents, and we survive. … We break the rules, we break the stereotype, the brainwashing of the Israeli mainstream that peace isn’t possible,’ Salaime said. ‘We have to win this and offer a different agenda.’ “

More at the Guardian, here. France’s Le Monde has more here.

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Pandemic-Launched Miniature Craze

Posted in Uncategorized on July 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Marina Totino.
A miniature vintage kitchen created by artist Marina Totino.

As the tsunami of Covid anxiety recedes back into the ocean, many of us are finding interesting flotsam and jetsam scattered around the beach. It is not only Zoom calls and working at home that remain. It’s increased engagement with Nature. It’s art suited to confined spaces (remember Shelter in Place Gallery back in 2020?).

The art of miniature making flourished when we were stuck at home and is still going strong. Alina Hartounian has a story about that at National Public Radio (NPR).

“Miniatures are huge right now,” she writes. “Social media feeds are chock-full of people painstakingly re-creating tiny kitchens where they may cook button-size eggs over the heat of a tealight. Creators give tours of carefully crafted homes decorated with handsewn, postage-stamp-sized pillows. …

“The pandemic is largely responsible for this talent boom, according to the miniaturists themselves. Artists on lockdown began showing off their to-scale creations and sharing their techniques. The resulting talent feedback loop has led to miniatures that are more detailed and thoughtful than ever.

” ‘I made my TikTok in 2020 like everyone else did. And that kind of blew up,’ said miniaturist Amanda Kelly, the first artist-in-residence at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures in Tucson, Ariz.

“Kelly’s work incorporates the tiniest details, like minuscule coffee rings, balled-up tissues the size of pinheads and teeny banana peels. …

“Why is social media so smitten by a working scaled-down sink, or books with printed words too small to read with the naked eye?

“The answer is as complex as some of the miniature-scapes themselves, according to experts and miniaturists.

” ‘It’s definitely about control,’ said Kelly. ‘It’s like when you play The Sims or some sort of simulation game where you have control of everything that happens in this little space, in this in this little world that you’re creating.’

“Susana Martinez-Conde, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York Downstate, agrees. … In our distraction-filled world, she said that getting to watch someone painstakingly craft the scenes is mesmerizing: ‘We’re almost craving deep attention, especially now that we’re pulled in so many different directions.’ …

“Most of the time, there are no humans in the art, just the relatively giant hands of the creator. And there’s almost always a backstory.

” ‘You can slow down and think about the little stories and you can get lost in creating what world you want,’ [Ashley Voortman, miniature artist and author of Creepy Crafts: 60 Macabre Projects for Peculiar Adults] said. Her stories are usually of the macabre variety, like an elaborate scene she made about an ‘unethical’ mental health facility, because, according to her, ‘an ethical one wouldn’t be very scary.’

“Montreal-based artist Marina Totino‘s tiny scenes tap into her love of nostalgia, particularly from the ’80s and ’90s, and transporting the viewer back to childhood. ‘I fell in love with just creating spaces that once existed that will never exist again,’ said Totino.

“Her work includes a shoebox-size video store with hundreds of DVDs. Its brick walls are tagged with graffiti, and a busted-up ‘Sorry we’re closed’ sign lies at the bottom of the front door. Mirror effects make its shelves of videos seem infinite. …

“The scale of these projects — usually at a ratio of 1:12 — makes them a special kind of challenge to construct. ‘It takes so long to build miniatures.’ said Totino. ‘It’s such a time-consuming medium, and I superglue my fingers together all the time. I drop things on the floor, I lose things because they’re so tiny and then I have to restart.’

Totino analyzes the shapes of objects to try to re-create them, like the curves on a corded phone that she carved from wood.

“Voortman starts her projects with a vague idea of what she wants to create. ‘I make miniatures out of a lot of used stuff, so I just would pile all my trash in front of me and then just start putting stuff together,’ she said.

“Using craft supplies and the junk she collects — like old soy sauce bottles, trinkets and lids. — Voortman has made a tiny haunted house out of a matchbox and an abandoned city on a teapot. …

“The miniatures community is a welcoming one, according to creators. There are a host of them who encourage one another online and meet up at miniature shows, conventions and sales, which are held across the U.S. For those who want to get in on the trend, Totino said there is no wrong approach.

” ‘It doesn’t matter how perfect your miniature world is. It could be made out of paper or cardboard and it’s still a way to be creative and make art and live in a space that is only yours that no one else can go to,’ said Totino.”

More at NPR, here. Please add more things that Covid-enforced contemplation gave the world.

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Summer in New England

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 5, 2025| 11 Comments »

Photos: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Blue lacecap hydrangea on a sunny day.

The photo collection below starts with my visit to the annual Umbrella Art show in the woods, which this year was located on Brister’s Hill for the town’s 250th Anniversary.

Brister Freeman was a man who started life in slavery. Thoreau spoke of him. The art show honors the travails and aspirations of enslaved Americans in New England, which was not an exception to slavery. You can read about the show, “Weaving an Address,” here.

The artist of the indigo slave cabin, Ifé Franklin, wrote a personal message to Brister Freeman and his wife on one wall. The color indigo references slavery’s “other cash crop.” Click here for info on that.

Incongruously, a Lorax hangs out in nearby Walden Woods. I had to take a picture of him as he represents what Dr. Seuss had to say about protecting nature.

Transitioning from Massachusetts to vacation in Rhode Island, I include a fishing boat seen in Point Judith on a foggy day. Point Judith is where I catch the boat to New Shoreham, but it’s also a working port.

New Shoreham’s iconic Southeast Light is the first of my recent New Shoream photos.

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National Holiday

Posted in Uncategorized on July 4, 2025| 3 Comments »

Sometimes love of country is a quiet thing.

A Happy Fourth to you, quiet or loud.

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Reading One Book for 12 Years

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 3, 2025| 11 Comments »

Photo: Peter Quadrino.
A Texas club has been reading Finnegans Wake for 12 years. And making progress.

I have a bunch of reactions to today’s story about a book group reading the same James Joyce novel for 12 years and still going. One is that I would have benefited from reading Finnegans Wake with others because there was so much I didn’t understand. Another is that my stereotype about Texans needs constant correction: of course, there are people in Texas who tackle literature!

Sean Saldana wrote about this book club at Texas Standard, which I follow on Mastodon.

“In 1939, Irish author James Joyce published Finnegans Wake, a piece of literature that defies comprehension. 

“ ‘riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s,’ it begins, ‘from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.’ 

“The book starts and ends with a sentence fragment, combines multiple languages and has no clear or linear plot. It’s a work that’s so dense, one group that started in Austin has been working on it for more than a decade.

“ ‘We’re only reading one page at a time,’ said Peter Quadrino, founder and organizer of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin, TX.

“Every other week, Quadrino hosts a Zoom call where people from around the world gather and attempt to understand one of the most infamous books in English literature.

“The group spends the first 15 minutes of each meeting socializing. Then they all go around in a circle and each person reads two lines until they’re done with that week’s page.

“After that, they spend about an hour and a half researching, annotating and trying to make sense of Joyce’s experimental prose.

“ ‘We used to read two pages per meeting,’ said Quadrino. ‘Then at a certain point there was just so much going on in the pages and so much in the discussion that we had to lower it to one page per meeting.’ …

“The book’s complexity has made it a point of fascination for literary enthusiasts in the eight decades since it was first published. Houston, New York, Boston, Seattle, Dublin, Kyiv and many other cities around the world host groups dedicated to reading and analyzing Finnegans Wake. …

“ ‘I never really consider what it’s going to be like when we finish because I don’t want it to end,’ explained Quadrino, ‘and if we do finish we’ll just circle right back to the beginning and keep reading.’ ” More at Texas Standard, here.

Would you want to join a book group like that? I have heard of similar ones. Humans just don’t want to be defeated by complexity. The Athenaeum in Boston reads Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past over and over, too.

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Eurovision’s 35-Second Set Changes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: SRG/SSR.
Construction of this year’s Eurovision stage began in early April, three weeks before rehearsals kicked off.

You have to admire the ambition that goes into producing an extravaganza. Just envisioning it seems beyond the imagination of normal mortals. Today’s story describes the behind-the-scenes magic of the 2025 European song competition known as Eurovision, in which fans root for their own countries.

Mark Savage reports at the BBC, “Thirty-five seconds. That’s all the time you get to change the set at Eurovision. Thirty-five seconds to get one set of performers off the stage and put the next ones in the right place. Thirty-five seconds to make sure everyone has the right microphones and earpieces. Thirty-five seconds to make sure the props are in place and tightly secured. …

” ‘We call it the Formula 1 tire change,’ says Richard van Rouwendaal, the affable Dutch stage manager who makes it all work. ‘Each person in the crew can only do one thing. You run on stage with one light bulb or one prop. You always walk on the same line. If you go off course, you will hit somebody.’

“The stage crew start rehearsing their ‘F1 tire change’ weeks before the contestants even arrive. Every country sends detailed plans of their staging, and Eurovision hires stand-ins to play the acts. …

“As soon as a song finishes, the team are ready to roll. As well as the stagehands, there are people responsible for positioning lights and setting pyrotechnics; and 10 cleaners who sweep the stage with mops and vacuum cleaners between every performance. …

“The attention to detail is clinical. Backstage, every performer has their own microphone stand, set to the correct height and angle, to make sure every performance is camera perfect.

” ‘Sometimes the delegation will say the artist wants to wear a different shoe for the grand final,’ says Van Rouwendaal. ‘But if that happens, the mic stand is at the wrong height, so we’ve got a problem!’ …

” ‘It’s a big logistics effort, actually, to get all the props organized,’ says Damaris Reist, deputy head of production for this year’s contest. ‘It’s all organized in a kind of a circle. The [props] come onto the stage from the left, and then get taken off to the right. Backstage, the props that have been used are pushed back to the back of the queue.’ …

“What if it all goes wrong?

“There are certain tricks the audience will never notice, Van Rouwendaal reveals. If he announces ‘stage not clear’ into his headset, the director can buy time by showing an extended shot of the audience. …

” ‘There’s actually lots of measures that are being taken to make sure that every act can be shown in the best way,’ says Reist. …

“It’s no surprise to learn that staging a live three-hour broadcast with thousands of moving parts is incredibly stressful. …

“The shifts are so long that, back in 2008, Eurovision production legend Ola Melzig built a bunker under the stage, complete with a sofa … and two (yes, two) espresso machines.

” ‘I don’t have hidden luxuries like Ola. I’m not at that level yet!’ laughs Van Rouwendaal ‘But backstage, I’ve got a spot with my crew. We’ve got stroopwafels there and, last week, it was King’s Day in Holland, so I baked pancakes for everyone.’ “

More at the BBC, here.

This year the winner was Austria’s Johannes Pietsch, or JJ, and the song was “Wasted Love.”

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Rx For Mississippians: Fresh Produce

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2025| 4 Comments »

Photo: Noah Stewart.
On 2 May, J’s Grocery in Clarksdale, Mississippi, reopened after a yearlong renovation. Through a new food-access initiative, J’s Grocery provides its mostly Black community with hard-to-come-by fresh produce.

The best medicine is often a healthful diet. But in many communities around the US, nourishing food is hard to access. That’s why a community in Mississippi is rejoicing about a newly renovated grocery store.

Adria R Walker writes at the Guardian about J’s Grocery revitalizing its majority-Black town with fresh produce.

“With the recent release of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as the home of the blues, has been thrust into the spotlight. But while the nation and world are captivated by a version of Clarksdale from more than 90 years ago, residents today are focused on the future.

“On 2 May, rain and warnings of thunderstorms were not enough to keep people in Clarksdale’s Brickyard neighborhood away from the reopening of J’s Grocery, a local staple since 1997 that had been under renovation for the last year.

“A collaboration between the store owner, Al Jones, and local farmers, J’s, the only Black-owned supermarket in the area, now carries fresh produce. …

“The new stock and collaboration was made possible by a deal among Jones; Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), a nonprofit that works to provide access to nutritious food; Rootswell, a Mississippi Delta-based group that was formed to ‘shift the paradigm of food apartheid‘; Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company; and other groups.

“ ‘At a time in our country when the federal government is just pulling money back everywhere, we invested in people and community,’ Noreen Springstead, PHA’s president and CEO said at the opening. …

“Jarvis Howard of Tunica, Mississippi, a visual artist who goes by DudeThatDraw, painted a mural, a smaller version of one he is installing at nearby George H Oliver elementary school. ‘Food is medicine,’ the mural reads over vibrantly colored vegetables. …

“Clarksdale, which today has a population of nearly 14,000 people, is primarily Black. The grocery store is in a walkable, mixed-income community, with an elementary school almost right across the street. A middle school, a Head Start center, a nursing home and senior citizen housing, low-income apartments and single-family homes are all in close proximity. In addition to the newly offered produce, the store also features a third space: a seated, shaded area surrounded by raised beds planted with herbs, where residents can gather and chat.

“The Mississippi Delta is abundant in fertile land and crops; agriculture is the state’s No 1 industry. Though some 30% of the state is farmland, most of that land is dedicated to cash crops, which are exported. In 2022, nearly 20% of Mississippians were food-insecure.

“Farms in the region ‘produce a lot of commodity crops, like corn, soybean, cotton. They don’t produce a lot of food that we eat,’ said Robbie Pollard, one of the farmers whose produce is now sold at J’s. ‘We’re trying to change the landscape to start producing more food in the Delta, like converting some of that land that’s used for row-crop production.’ …

“Pollard said that while the Mississippi Delta region is abundant in farmland, there’s a gap in what reaches the community. His initiative, Happy Foods Project, which is part of his farm, Start 2 Finish, is working to remedy that by collaborating with other farmers, and introducing youth to farming through farm visits and farm-to-school programs.

“J’s Grocery reopening will be a gamechanger for the neighborhood, he said. Some residents lack transportation to be able to get to big box stores that sell imported produce. Rural counties in the Mississippi Delta, like Coahoma county in which Clarksdale is the largest town, average one supermarket per 190.5 sq miles . …

“After Clarksdale lost its Kroger in 2017, residents initially pushed for another big box store to move in. But Tyler Yarbrough, the director of Mississippi Delta Programs for PHA, and others wanted the town to be able to return to its locally owned, locally operated roots. …

“Yarbrough said that stories from his grandmother and other older residents of shopping in the 1960s provided inspiration for what they might be able to bring back to the town. At the time, locals didn’t need to leave their communities to procure groceries. Instead, they went to the local grocery stores, which, like J’s, had a butcher who sold chicken, pork, freshly sliced bacon and produce.

“ ‘It is in our food-system history of having these neighborhood corner stores,’ he said, noting that the Brickyard and downtown Clarksdale once had 12 such shops. ‘This project is honoring that legacy and reminding us that we can own our food and the stores that we shop from.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall, but donations keep this reliable news source alive. Help if you can.

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Hawaii Tax to Go to Environment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 30, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: Brian Howell, Flickr Commons.
A helicopter circles a wildfire on Kaua‘i, where these fires are becoming increasingly common during drier summer months.

A Guardian update on what governments are doing about increased environmental costs sent me to Hawaii’s website. The island state, already grappling with the effects of global warming, is the first in the US to approve a tourism tax designated for climate issues.

The article says, “Lawmakers in Hawaii have passed first-of-its-kind legislation that will increase the state’s lodging tax to raise money for environmental protection and strengthening defenses against natural disasters fueled by the climate crisis. …

“[Gov. Josh] Green said in a statement. ‘Hawai‘i is truly setting a new standard to address the climate crisis.’

“The bill passed [adds] a 0.75% levy to the state’s existing tax on hotel rooms, timeshares, vacation rentals and other short-term accommodations. It also imposes a new 11% tax on cruise ship bills, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.

“Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100m annually. They say the money will be used for projects like replenishing sand on eroding Waikiki beaches, promoting the use of hurricane clips to secure roofs during powerful storms and clearing flammable invasive grasses like those that fed the deadly wildfire that destroyed downtown Lahaina in 2023. …

“Hawaii already levies a 10.25% tax on short-term rentals. As of 1 January, the tax will rise to 11%. Hawaii’s counties separately charge a 3% lodging tax, and travelers also have to pay the 4.712% general excise tax that applies to all virtually all goods and services. The cumulative tax bill at checkout will climb to 18.712%, among the highest in the nation. …

“As many visitors travel to the state to enjoy the environment, [Green] predicted they would welcome committing dollars to protect shorelines and communities.

“ ‘The more you cultivate good environmental policy, and the more you invest in perfecting our lived space, the more likely it is we’re going to have actually lifelong, committed travelers to Hawaii,’ he told the Associated Press.

“Zane Edleman, a visitor from Chicago, said … ‘If you really focus on the point – this is to save the climate and actually have proof that this is where the funds are going, and that there’s an actual result that’s happening from that, I think people could buy into it.’ …

“John Pele, the executive director of the Maui Hotel and Lodging Association, said there’s broad agreement that the money raised will go to a good cause. But he wonders if Hawaii will become too expensive for visitors.

“ ‘Will we be taxing on tourists out of wanting to come here?’ he said. ‘That remains to be seen.’ ”

The website Hawaii.gov notes that “2015 and 2016 were Hawaiʻi’s warmest years on record, and average air temperatures are 2 degrees warmer than they were in 1950. In 2019, Honolulu experienced its hottest recorded day three times, representing the hottest year ever recorded in the city. The last five years have seen peak average annual temperatures years across all islands.  In 2015-2016, it was so hot in Honolulu that emergency public service announcements were issued to curtail escalating air conditioning use because it stressed the electrical grid.” 

Among other global-warming consequences the website lists are the loss of 1.5 million acres of native forests, increasing numbers of wildfires, rapid growth of invasive species, “mass coral bleaching and mortality,” and a severe strain on water and energy infrastructure.

More at the Guardian, here, and at Hawaii’s official website, here.

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Artist Leonora Carrington, Rediscovered

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 29, 2025| 7 Comments »

Art: Leonora Carrington/Arts Rights Society, New York.
“Pastoral” (1950) is among the works included in “Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver” at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts.

All praise to the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University for thinking differently. Compared with other museums in New England, it has always been a little bit “out there.” In today’s story that involves taking a new look at the surrealists, especially a previously underappreciated one.

Mackenzie Farkus writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Shape-shifting creatures. Dreamscapes of greenery. Prancing hyenas and noble white horses. These are just a few of the hallmarks of surrealist Leonora Carrington.

“The artist – who was born in 1917 in England and died in 2011 – was once on the periphery of the surrealist movement. But in the decade following her death, Ms. Carrington’s work has experienced a revival.

“While her adopted homeland of Mexico has long embraced her art, the celebration of Ms. Carrington’s legacy has reached a crescendo in other parts of the world in recent years. Her reemergence follows a trend of increased attention to fellow women creators. …

“In the case of Ms. Carrington, her ‘Les Distractions de Dagobert’ (1945) sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2024, cementing her status as the highest-selling female artist in British history. … Her first solo exhibition in New England – at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum – is on display until June 1, and then moves to the Katonah Museum of Art in New York. …

” ‘What Leonora offers – and what surrealism offers – are alternative ways of understanding the world: not through the capitalist economic system of transactional politics, but tapping into empowerment through the imagination, invisible truths, things that have to do with our subconscious,’ says Gannit Ankori, director and chief curator of the Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts.

“Dr. Ankori curated the museum’s exhibit ‘Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver.’ A number of the pieces on display – including works in tempera, gouache, acrylic, oil, pencil, pen, and fiber – have rarely been seen outside private collections. …

“In the 1950 painting ‘Pastoral,’ water fowl, a hyena, and other animals congregate around an androgynous couple as ethereal animal-human hybrids float above. Ms. Carrington often emphasized the coexistence of humans and animals in her work.

“Of particular resonance to Dr. Ankori was Ms. Carrington’s love for Mexico … ‘a welcoming country that embraced and offered safe haven to refugees from war-torn Europe in the 1940s,’ says Dr. Ankori. … ‘And these immigrants, many of them intellectuals and artists, resettled in this new, embracing homeland and felt welcome. They built community and developed cultural excellence in the arts and philosophy and literature and more.’

“Alongside her many paintings, textile works, and sculptures, Ms. Carrington was also a prolific writer. Her 1944 memoir, Down Below, details her experiences of institutionalization in Spain. Her fictional work includes a wide range of surrealist short stories, plays, and novels. …

“Born into an upper-class Catholic family in England, Ms. Carrington often rebelled against the societal restrictions imposed on her. She was twice expelled from convent schools, and favored reading Irish fairy tales, Lewis Carroll, and Beatrix Potter over learning how to become the perfect debutante.

“A viewing of Max Ernst’s 1924 painting ‘Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale’ and a copy of Herbert Read’s 1936 book Surrealism influenced her artistic development, as did her tutelage under the French modernist Amédée Ozenfant.

“Women in the surrealist movement were often relegated to the role of the femme enfant – often young, beautiful women who were expected to be subservient to male artists.

“Ms. Carrington, however, had other plans. ‘I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse,’ she once said. ‘I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.’ …

“Ms. Carrington eventually found her way to Mexico and married Hungarian photographer Emérico ‘Chiki’ Weisz.

“There, she encountered a community of European artists who had fled the horrors of World War II, often exhibiting her art in local galleries. She became close friends with fellow émigré and artist Ms. Varo. Together, they studied kabbalah, alchemy, Tibetan Buddhism, and Mayan mystical writings – the ideas of which feature prominently in Ms. Carrington’s art. She went on to become one of the founding members of Mexico’s 1970s feminist movement. …

“Ms. Carrington’s first solo museum show in Italy will open at Milan’s Palazzo Reale in September, on view until January 2026. An exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris will be on view from Feb. 18 to July 19, 2026.”

More at the Monitor, here. No paywall.

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Prisoners’ Beauty School

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 28, 2025| 4 Comments »

Photo: Moriah Ratner for the Washington Post.
At the home of the Cosmetology & Barber apprenticeship program, four instructors teach incarcerated people on mannequins, No sharp blades allowed.

I’ve always been interested in prison programs that help the incarcerated learn skills that can help them find work on the outside and avoid recidivism. It seemed so stupid to lock people up for months or years and then dump them on the side of the road somewhere with not much more than a toothbrush to get on with life.

Today’s focus is on teaching cosmetology skills to people who might be interested in eventually pursuing a license. A license requires serious application, but sometimes the effort starts with a little encouragement.

Samantha Chery writes at the Washington Post, “When Chet Bennett accepted a job in 1998 to teach incarcerated people in D.C. how to style hair, he was ‘scared to death.’ A native Washingtonian and Howard University alum, Bennett had never even seen the inside of a jail before his first day of work. Now, the 56-year-old is glad he took the chance.

“He makes weekly visits to the jail’s hair-care room, a small salon on the fifth floor of the city’s Correctional Treatment Facility, complete with dryer chairs and four shampoo bowls. At the home of the Cosmetology & Barber apprenticeship program, four instructors teach incarcerated people on mannequins, and the student stylists comb, braid and loc the hair of fellow jail residents, relatives and other clients from outside the facility.

“Since Bennett founded the program, he’s won a Legacy of Service Award and graduated thousands of hairstylists, many of whom now work in salons or have their own studios. …

“Teaching jail residents comes with logistical challenges: They aren’t allowed to use shears or razor blades, paint nails, or dye hair due to the facility’s restrictions, and they don’t have enough time during their short sentences — which typically run a year or less — to finish their necessary training for licensing.

“People trying to complete the 1,500 training hours required to receive a cosmetology license have the option to transition from the jail salon to Bennett’s off-site beauty school, the Bennett Career Institute near Catholic University, after finishing their sentences.

“When Angelina Millner was jailed in 2005, in her mid-30s, the cosmetology program improved her styling technique and helped her find work after her release.

“Despite homelessness and other personal battles, she said, Millner was able to attend Bennett’s school in 2012 to get her license, and now does business as Mo’ Hair by Angelina. She recalled how gratifying it felt to return to the jail in 2020 — as a teacher instead of a resident: ‘I just had to stay on the straight and narrow ever since.’

“Bennett said he has learned it’s best to reserve judgment. He doesn’t look at his students’ records, hoping to give them a clean slate. … There’s ‘something that we’ve all done and have fallen short, but by grace and mercy, we were allowed to straighten our ways and continue to move on,’ he said. ‘It has meant so much for me to know that I can go into a facility and give people a second chance.’ ” More at the Post, here.

Some years ago, in one of the English as a Second Language classes where I volunteered, a student decided to go for a cosmetology license at a Rhode Island training school. It was a pretty serious commitment of time and money. It took her more than a year. Watching her, I learned it’s not something you can be casual about and still be successful.

Looking up Washington DC licensing, I found these details: you are required to be “at least 17 years old. Have a High School Diploma or GED. Have completed and been credited with 1,500 hours of fundamental training.”

One place describes its course thus: “The General Cosmetology Course at Bennett Career Institute is a comprehensive 1,500-clock-hour program designed to provide instruction in a wide range of cosmetology skills and techniques.

“Students will learn about sanitation and sterilization, decontamination, and infection control practices, as well as hair cutting, coloring, perms, and other chemical services. The curriculum also covers hair styling techniques and other occupational requirements such as manicures, pedicures, and facials. BCI’s General Cosmetology Curriculum is designed to meet the requirements of the District of Columbia Board of Barber and Cosmetology, preparing students for a cosmetology operator’s license. …

” Individuals who obtain a license can provide a variety of beauty services such as shampooing, cutting, coloring, styling hair, apply makeup, dress wigs, perform hair removal as well as provide nail and skin care services.” More here.

Once you have a license and keep it up-to-date, you may go into completely different kinds of jobs, but you always have that to fall back on.

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A Strange Sight Under the Sea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: UW/NSF-OOI/CSSF-ROPOS via CNN Science.
White clouds of microbial waste billow from the seafloor — the result of a volcanic eruption. 

Rachel Carson thought it would be hard for humans to pollute the oceans because they were so vast. I guess she was wrong about that, but the oceans’ vastness does make them likely to remain a source of wonder and discovery — mysterious no matter how much we study them.

Today’s example of deep-sea wonder comes from the New York Times, where Maya Wei-Haas reports that scientists have witnessed a volcanic eruption that had never been experienced in person.

“Andrew Wozniak, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Delaware,” she writes, “struggled to process what his eyes were taking in. Dr. Wozniak was parked on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean beneath nearly 1.6 miles of water in Alvin, a research submersible. As far as he could see lay a mostly barren expanse of jet-black rock.

“Just a day before, at this same spot, a vibrant ecosystem had thrived in the sweltering waters of the Tica hydrothermal vent, about 1,300 miles west of Costa Rica. Creatures inhabited every inch of the rocky seafloor, writhing in a patchwork of life. The crimson tips of giant tube worms waggled in the current, tangling around clusters of mussels. Buglike crustaceans scuttled through the scene while ghostly white fish languidly prowled for their next kill.

“Now, only a single cluster of tube worms remained in the blackened terrain, all dead. A haze of particulates filled the water as glints of bright orange lava flickered among the rocks.

“ ‘My brain was trying to understand what was going on,’ Dr. Wozniak said. ‘Where did things go?’

“Eventually it clicked: He and the sub’s other passengers were witnessing the tail end of a submarine volcanic eruption that had entombed the flourishing ecosystem under fresh lava rock.

“This was the first time scientists had witnessed a clearly active eruption along the mid-ocean ridge, a volcanic mountain chain that stretches about 40,000 miles around the globe, like the seams of a baseball. The ridge marks the edges of tectonic plates as they pull apart, driving volcanic eruptions and creating fresh crust, or the layer of the Earth we live on, beneath the sea. About 80 percent of Earth’s volcanism happens on the seafloor, with the vast majority occurring along the mid-ocean ridge. …

“Observing such an event live offers a unique opportunity for scientists to study one of our planet’s most fundamental processes: the birth of new seafloor, and its dynamic effects on ocean chemistry, ecosystems, microbial life and more.

“ ‘Being there in real time is just this absolutely phenomenal gift — I’m really jealous,’ said Deborah Kelley, a marine geologist at the University of Washington who was not part of the research team.

“Dr. Wozniak and colleagues sailed on a ship, the R/V Atlantis, before setting out in the Alvin sub. Their original goal was to study carbon flowing from the Tica vent, funded by the National Science Foundation. Hydrothermal vents are like a planetary plumbing system, expelling seawater that’s heated as it seeps through the ocean floor. The process transports both heat and chemicals from Earth’s interior, helping regulate ocean chemistry and feeding a unique community of deep marine life.

“The dive on [on that May] Tuesday morning started like any other. Alyssa Wentzel, an undergraduate at the University of Delaware who joined Dr. Wozniak aboard Alvin, described the enchantment of sinking into the darkness of the ocean depths on the 70-minute journey to the seafloor. As the light vanished, bioluminescent jellies and tiny zooplankton drifted by.

“ ‘It was magical,’ she said. ‘It really takes your words away.’

“But as they approached the site, a darker magic set in as temperatures slowly ticked upward and particles filled the water. The usual dull gray-brown of the seafloor was capped by tendrils of inky rock that glimmered with an abundance of glass — the result of rapid quenching when lava hits chilly water.

“As particulates clouded the view from Alvin, Kaitlyn Beardshear of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the pilot in command of the day’s journey, slowed the sub, keeping close watch on the temperatures. As they ticked up, so too did concerns for safety of the submersible and the crew. Eventually, the pilot made the call to retreat. …

“The team learned after returning to the ship that sensitive microphones, called hydrophones, aboard the Atlantis had detected the volcanic eruption earlier in the day. It registered as a series of low frequency booms and campfire-like crackle.

“This was the third known eruption at the Tica vent since its discovery in the 1980s. Over the decades, Dan Fornari, a marine geologist at Woods Hole, and his colleagues have closely monitored the site, tracking changes in temperature, water chemistry and more. …

“In 1991, he and his colleagues had arrived at Tica within days of an eruption’s start. It might even have still been active, he said, but they saw no flashes of lava to confirm. This time, he said, there’s no doubt of what the Alvin crew saw. ‘This has been the closest that we ever come to witnessing the initiation of an eruption’ along the mid-ocean ridge, he said.

“The team is continuing to study the volcanic activity. Given safety concerns, they’re collecting data and taking photographs remotely from the Atlantis.

“The data will help researchers unravel the mysteries of deep-sea volcanism and the role it plays in marine ecosystems. ‘All of this has to do with understanding this holistic system that is Earth and ocean,’ Dr. Fornari said. ‘It’s so intertwined, and it’s both complex and beautiful.’ ”

More at the Times, here.

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Where Do Movies Get Good Props?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 26, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photo:  Jake Michaels.
Pam Elyea and her husband, Jim, have run the theatrical properties business History for Hire for almost 40 years, but now rent is going up and business is down.

When I was in the Junior Antrim Players production of Alice in Wonderland (age 10), my mother volunteered to do props. [Scroll way down here for fun information on the Junior Antrim Players and famous actors who got their start there.] You know, finding all those odds and ends that a script says are needed onstage to carry the story — a gavel for the Knave of Hearts trial, paintbrushes for painting the roses red, the caterpillar’s hookah. For opening night, she provided real tarts from a local bakery, but found out she’d have to do that for the dress rehearsal, too. Props are a big deal.

Matt Stevens wrote recently at the New York Times about prop mavens calling themselves History for Hire.

“When the Netflix series Wednesday needed a guillotine recently, it did not have to venture far. A North Hollywood prop house called History for Hire had one available, standing more than eight feet high with a suitably menacing blade. …

“The company’s 33,000-square-foot warehouse is like the film and television industry’s treasure-filled attic, crammed with hundreds of thousands of items that help bring the past to life. It has a guitar Timothée Chalamet used in A Complete Unknown, luggage from Titanic, a black baby carriage from The Addams Family.

“Looking for period detail? You can find different iterations of Wheaties boxes going back to the ’40s, enormous television cameras with rotating lenses from the ’50s, a hair dyer with a long hose that connects to a plastic bonnet from the ’60s, a pay phone from the ’70s and a yellow waterproof Sony Walkman from the ’80s.

History for Hire, which Jim and Pam Elyea have owned for almost four decades, is part of the crucial but often unseen infrastructure that keeps Hollywood churning. …

“ ‘People just don’t realize how valuable a business like that is to help support the look of a film,’ said Nancy Haigh, a set decorator who found everything from a retro can of pork and beans to a one-ton studio crane there for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which she won an Oscar for. ‘But it’s because people like them exist that your moviegoing experience has such life to it.’ …

“When the director, George Clooney, really wanted an old Moviola editing machine, [Good Night, and Good Luck set decorator Jan Pascale recalled] the Elyeas found her one at a local school. And they had not only the telex machines that the production needed, but also workers who knew how to get them to work. …

“ ‘I don’t know what we would do without them,’ said Pascale, who has won an Oscar for Mank. …

“But with fewer movies and television shows being shot in Los Angeles these days, and History for Hire getting less business, the Elyeas fear they may not be able to afford to renew their lease. …

“[Jim’s] parents owned an antique store, and Jim had always been a collector. So when a friend who was a production designer asked Jim to come work on sets, he was sold. …

“The couple opened their prop-rental business out of their apartment. Their first big break came when they got the gig to rent flak vests, field radios and medic equipment to Oliver Stone’s 1986 film Platoon. (They now admit that they may have exaggerated their size and expertise.) …

“On a recent afternoon inside the warehouse, Dave McCullough, a prop maker, was hunkered over a work station fitting a microphone stand to a base it was not designed for. He would later use a 3-D printer to make a new tally light — the light which tells performers which camera is on at any moment — for an original RCA TK60 television camera from the 1960s and consider whether to use a heat gun to make it a slightly richer shade of red.

“ ‘What is great about being in a building like this is I’ve got the last century of objects as a reference,’ said McCullough, who has worked at History for Hire for nine years. ‘A lot of the things here had multiple lives before they got to us.’ …

“A Broadway-bound musical centered around Soul Train recently needed to rent some TV cameras, Pam said. While researching the cameras, the History for Hire team discovered that the show was one of the first to employ female camera operators. So they sent over a camera — and a photo. And now, audience members will see a female camera operator in the show, a spokesman for the musical, Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical, confirmed. …

“The Elyeas would have to rent many drum sets and many, many, many drum sticks to cover the $500,000 they pay annually to rent the building where they store them all. Pam said that she is fine with some work going other places. … But Pam said that she would need more local production in Los Angeles to keep her doors open. …

“ ‘Neither Jim or I are really ready to throw in the towel yet,’ she said. Maybe, she said, they will sign a two-year lease, rather than a five-year lease. And then they’ll see how it goes.”

More at the Times, here.

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