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Find This Art Under the Ground

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 26, 2017| 2 Comments »


Photo: Jared Soares for the New York Times
Dupont Underground, a converted trolley station, functions as an experimental art and cultural space in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood.

Kids are pretty literal about things they hear adults say. I knew a girl, a granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, who when very young was supposed to recite Bible verses with all the students in her school. In her mind, the words “Praise and magnify Him forever” were “Praise the grandfather with a feather.” Someone corrected her.

If I were to tell one of my young granddaughters about underground art, I suspect she’d picture art that was literally under the ground, maybe for the ants that “go marching one by one, down to the ground, to get out of the rain.”

In Washington, DC, she’d be close to the mark. As Avantika Chilkoti wrote recently for the New York Times, an experimental-art space is located under Dupont Circle.

“Roaming the streets of the Dupont Circle neighborhood about 20 years ago, Julian Hunt spotted a grimy staircase leading down from the pavement to a boarded-up door.

“He spent many hours on the phone and in the city’s archives, which led Mr. Hunt to crawl through filthy tunnels with a flashlight to discover an old trolley tunnel inhabited by a small group of homeless people.

“Since the city’s trolley service shut down in 1962, the 75,000-square-foot labyrinth had been the site of a subterranean murder, rumored ’80s rave parties and a Cold War-era bomb shelter. Now, Mr. Hunt, an architect who was a founder of the Hunt Laudi Studio, has turned the tunnels into the Dupont Underground art space, which draws 3,000 visitors every month. …

“The tunnels are now part of a wave of spaces — from small galleries that host artists to sitting rooms that accommodate musicians — where local talent can showcase work in the capital rather than fleeing to New York. …

“ ‘We’re this intermediate opportunity,’ said Noel Kassewitz, director for arts programming at Dupont Underground. ‘We’re a young nonprofit so we have the flexibility to host more experimental works here while at the same time having the space.” …

“The tunnels belong to the District of Columbia government. But after much haggling with the authorities, delayed further by the turmoil of the global financial crisis, Mr. Hunt won a five-year lease in 2014.

“His nonprofit has since spent about $300,000 — raised through crowdfunding and private donations as well as ticket sales — to clean the space and install basic lights and ventilation. Local officials are watching its success closely after an attempt to draw people to the tunnels with a food court on another platform failed in the 1990s.

“For Mr. Hunt, the project is a form of activism in a city where, when people think of beautiful architecture, they think mostly of the preservation of historic buildings.

“ ‘It’s not the kind of activism where you actually do things, new things and where you experiment,’ Mr. Hunt said. ‘That’s not here. This is not an entrepreneurial city.’ ” More here. Check out the pictures.

I do like the concept, but I wish the reporter had told me what happened to the homeless people that Hunt found there 20 years ago.

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Panhandling Meter to Help the Homeless

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 25, 2017| 2 Comments »

091817-panhandler-alternative

The Providence bus hub is in the center of town near shops, corporate offices, Burnside Park, restaurants, galleries, hotels, and other attractions. In bad weather it becomes an unofficial day shelter for homeless people, with the result that the whole area is a magnet for Rhode Islanders who need more help than a roof.

Panhandling has become a constant fixture there, and with businesses complaining loudly, the city has tried to address the issue in a variety of ways. Some of them have been ham-handed, like the short-lived initiative to put panhandlers in jail.

The latest approach appeals to me, despite seeming like a superficial way to address deep social problems. It involves a kind of parking meter, where the compassionate can donate indirectly to those who need help knowing that the money will not go toward anything that makes their lives worse.

Providence is also experimenting with a program piloted by Albuquerque, New Mexico, which pays people to do work around the city rather than panhandling.

A year ago, Edward Fitzpatrick at the Providence Journal described the thinking behind the effort to find constructive solutions.

“The Washington Post just wrote about Albuquerque’s ‘There’s a Better Way’ program, which pays $9 an hour for day jobs beautifying the city. In partnership with a local nonprofit that helps the homeless, the program employs about 10 panhandlers per day and offers them shelter. In less than a year, they’ve cleared 69,601 pounds of litter and weeds from 196 city blocks, and 100 people have been connected with permanent jobs.

“Republican Mayor Richard Berry told The Post that most panhandlers have been eager to work. ‘It’s helping hundreds of people,’ he said, ‘and our city is more beautiful than ever.’

“And now, the Albuquerque model is being looked at by both Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza and former Providence Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr., a downtown property owner who just became chairman of the Downtown Improvement District and called a meeting on panhandling and homelessness. …

“Paolino said he does not want to address panhandling in ‘the Giuliani way — throw them out and not fix any of the problems.’ Rather, he wants to work with social-service agencies so that if people are homeless they get shelter and if they’re addicted they get treatment, but if they’re dealing drugs they should be apprehended, he said.

“ ‘Although this is a crisis, this is an opportunity,’ Paolino said. ‘These social-service agencies never had the business community working with them before.’ ”

That program strikes me as a good idea. I have seen it in action. I also like the meters. For me, it’s a great way to keep pocket change from weighing me down while reassuring me that small amounts will add up to something meaningful. The money goes to reliable agencies, and people in need of assistance can contact them using information on the meters.

More at US News, here, and the Providence Journal, here.

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Never Cross an Irish Fairy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 24, 2017| 4 Comments »


Photo: Irish History
In Ireland and elsewhere, a ring of mushrooms is thought to be a fairy ring.

Turtle Bunbury posts lots of interesting stories about Ireland on Facebook, and recently he shared an article about the notoriously vengeful Irish fairies.

Michael Fortune, folklorist and filmmaker, writing at an Irish publication called the Journal, says that “there’s not a village in the country that doesn’t have these fairy stories. Our folklore tell us that they inhabit certain places: bushes, stones, corners of fields and especially old enclosures which number 40,000 plus around the country. …

“It’s generally claimed that we have lost some 10,000 since they were first mapped in the 19th century and this is mostly due to mechanisation and developments in agriculture, land reclamation etc.

“Growing up on the coast of Wexford my own late father brought me to every raheen in our area, while in the same breath showed me the spots where others once stood and most importantly, told me who was involved in removing them and the consequences they suffered. …

” ‘It’s not worth the risk,’ I repeatedly hear from farmers. …

“When the landscape changed due to developments in agriculture and field formation over the centuries, these physical spaces were left behind, untouched and this is where your fairy paths come into play. …

“We literally have thousands of stories relating to the consequences of building/interfering on such paths recorded in our archives or alive in the stories of communities around the country. …

“In extreme cases I’ve seen houses abandoned due to the torment brought on by the fairies. And if your DIY skills couldn’t fix it, you’d call for some outside expertise and I’m not talking Dermot Bannon here with his concepts of light and open spaces. No, more along the lines of those those ancient Druid like fellas with their prayers, magic water and long flowing cape ie the local parish priest.

“Although Rome mightn’t have agreed with their actions, there are numerous accounts of priests being brought in to perform exorcisms of sorts on such houses all over the country. In my own village in Wexford one such story still survives of a priest who was brought into a house which the fairies visited every night and after ‘driving the fairies out, he died three weeks later as a result of his efforts.’ Such was the power of the fairies.” More at the Journal, here.

I loved Fortune’s video of two believers. I especially loved their brogue since I failed to record James‘s speech, and now he’s gone.

Film: Michael Fortune
Two men discuss encounters with the fairies in Ireland.

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Experimenting with Guaranteed Income

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 23, 2017| 3 Comments »

Photo: Nichole Sobecki for NPR
This Kenyan hamlet is participating in a cash-distribution experiment. The nonprofit GiveDirectly will give $22 a month for 12 years to people in 200 such villages and compare the results with 100 other Kenyan villages.

MIT-based Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) has been working on poverty alleviation for many years now. The nonprofit describes itself as “a network of 145 affiliated professors from 49 universities. Our mission is to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.”

A long-term experiment providing Kenyans with a guaranteed income was recently described at National Public Radio. The story caught my attention because my former colleague Erin has been proposing a guaranteed-income approach for years.

NPR’s Nurith Aizenman explains.

“Young guys in dusty polo shirts. New moms holding their babies. Grandmas in bright head wraps. They’ve all gathered in a clearing for one of the village meetings when something remarkable happens. Practically every person’s cellphone starts tinkling.

“It’s a text alert from an American charity called GiveDirectly. Last fall, GiveDirectly announced that it will give every adult in this impoverished village in Kenya an extra $22 each month for the next 12 years — with no strings attached. The money is wired to bank accounts linked to each villager’s phone. The alert is the signal that the latest payment has posted. Everyone starts cheering. Some of the younger women break into song.

“The payouts are part of a grand and unprecedented experiment that is motivated by an equally sweeping question: What if our entire approach to helping the world’s poorest people is fundamentally flawed?

“Today practically all aid is given as ‘in-kind’ donations — whether that’s food, an asset like a cow, job training or schoolbooks. And this means that, in effect, it’s the providers of aid — governments, donor organizations, even private individuals donating to a charity — who decide what poor people need most. But what if you just gave poor people cash with no strings attached? Let them decide how best to use it?

“GiveDirectly has actually been advocating for this kind of cash aid for the past decade. Founded by four grad students in economics who wanted to challenge traditional aid, the charity has already given $65 million to people across Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, provided by a mix of Silicon Valley foundations and ordinary citizens who contribute through GiveDirectly’s website. And

GiveDirectly has shown through rigorous, independent study that people don’t waste the money.

“Still, those cash grants were relatively modest one-time payouts. With this experiment, GiveDirectly wants to see what happens when you give extremely poor people a much longer runway — a guaranteed ‘basic income’ they can count on for years.

“Michael Faye, the chairman of GiveDirectly, says they’ve chosen to set the payment at $22 because in Kenya $22 per person per month is ‘the food poverty line — the amount of money it would take to afford a basic basket of food for yourself.’

“This hamlet near Lake Victoria — about 400 residents living on less than $2 a day in mud-brick huts with no running water — is just the beginning. [This] fall, GiveDirectly wants to extend the monthly payments to every adult in 200 similar villages across Kenya, then compare them to 100 ‘control’ villages that don’t get the cash. To do this they need $30 million, of which they’ve raised $25 million.

“Some of the world’s foremost researchers of anti-poverty strategies will be doing an independent study of the data that emerges — including Alan Krueger, professor of economics at Princeton University, and Abhijit Banerjee, a professor of economics at MIT and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. …

” ‘Let them make the choices,’ says [Michael Faye, the chairman of GiveDirectly]. ‘Because the poor are pretty good at making them.’ ”

At NPR, here, there’s a lot more detail, plus interviews with a couple recipients.

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The Power of Urban Trees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 22, 2017| 3 Comments »

Photo: Wikimedia
A shady street in suburbia.

John has been working with the Arlington Tree Committee to inventory the town’s trees and promote the benefits of an urban canopy.

Recently, his team has connected with the lab of Lucy Hutyra, associate professor of earth and environment at Boston University, who plans to bring post-doc colleagues to Arlington to help determine the best planting strategies for combatting problems like heat islands.

A 2016 CityLab article about Hutyra’s research with BU biologist Andrew Reinmann notes that trees in urban and suburban environments actually do a better job of removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than trees in forests.

As Courtney Humphries reported at CityLab, “Forests are important asset in fighting climate change, absorbing an estimated 30 percent of the carbon dioxide we emit from burning fossil fuels. But those estimates come from big forests, says Reinmann, and we know relatively little about how patchy forests function, and whether they provide the same services that large forests do.

“A study published [in December 2016] in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Reinmann and BU environmental scientist Lucy Hutyra shows that forest fragments in New England behave differently than intact forests in surprising ways: they may pull significantly more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than predicted. …

“ ‘You can see how the structure of the trees all along the edge is different,’ [Reinmann] says, pointing to a stand of oaks with long horizontal branches reaching over the backyards, soaking up the additional sunlight. Slicing and dicing forests with housing developments, roads, and agricultural fields creates a multitude of forest edges and, as Reinmann and his colleagues are finding, conditions at the edge of a forest are different than deep inside it. These effects add up; currently, 20 percent of the world’s forested land is within 330 feet of an edge.

“Edge conditions can actually be a boon to the trees that remain. An earlier study from Hutyra’s lab found that urbanization makes trees in Massachusetts grow faster. …

“ ‘On, average the forest is growing 90 percent faster near the edge,’ says Reinmann. In some cases, individual trees are growing faster, and in other cases, they’re growing more densely. …

Given the growth boost at edges, Reinmann and Hutyra estimate, forests in southern New England take up about 13 percent more carbon dioxide than they’re given credit for, and store about 10 percent more carbon. …

“But, Reinmann says, ‘the really important thing to stress is that it does not mean forest fragmentation is a good thing. The carbon sink here is still substantially lower than it would be if we didn’t lose any forest.’ In other words, slicing up a forest to store carbon is a very bad idea.”

Click here for more, and here for the street tree map John’s team is building thanks to their Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation grant.

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African-American Conductor in Minnesota

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Associate conductor Roderick Cox and the Minnesota Orchestra during rehearsal. Photo from the conductor’s collection.

There are not many African American conductors. Not yet. In Boston, we know Isaiah Jackson, whose distinguished career included a stint with the Boston Pops in the 1990s. But black conductors have remained scarce.

Now there is Roderick Cox at the Minnesota Orchestra. John Mancini writes about him at NBC News.

“Growing up, the sound of music was a constant in the Cox household. As a boy, Roderick Cox joined his mother and brother in their Macon, Georgia, gospel choir. At home he would put on his own concerts in his room — with the help of his action figures. …

“Cox began his musical journey at Northwestern University, where he studied conducting under the tutelage of famed Russian Conductor Victor Yampolsky. It was actually Yampolsky who planted the seed in the young musician’s mind.

“ ‘Yampolsky, who was very charismatic to me, told me “You should be a conductor.” At first – I laughed at him. But after he reiterated that, it started to become a reality for me,’ says Cox. …

“Cox is just one of a handful of African-American orchestra conductors in the world — and at age 30, certainly one of the youngest. Even with his undeniable talent, the road hasn’t been easy.

“ ‘You’re clawing yourself through the profession. I always say you can’t want to be a conductor you have to need to be a conductor,’ he says.

“It’s having that attitude that helps you withstand, ‘hundreds of rejections and people, organizations telling you that you’re not good enough,’ says Cox. …

“Black folks have been largely left out of classical music. Cox said he felt inspired to do his part to change that and is working hard to break down the barriers that exist between different kinds of people from different walks of life. …

“ ‘I think it’s important for people of different races and backgrounds to see themselves represented onstage.’ ”

More at NBC, here.

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Tech Companies Seek Liberal Arts Grads

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 20, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Steve Swayne/wikimedia
The humanities are staging a comeback. May the Parthenon and the finer things it represents stand forever.

I had a liberal arts education. I studied Latin. I studied Ancient Greek. There were certainly times after college I wondered if I should have spent more time on something “practical,” if I should have gotten training that would have plunked me straight into a job.

But then again, where would I be without the richness of the humanities?

Nowadays, there is a prominent thread of educational dialogue that emphasizes the importance of training for jobs, and I get that. But as the drumbeat of practicality continues loud and clear, a new one is also making itself heard. It turns out that even tech companies are beginning to see the point of a liberal arts background.

George Anders writes at Forbes, “In less than two years Slack Technologies has become one of the most glistening of tech’s ten-digit ‘unicorn’ startups, boasting 1.1 million users and a private market valuation of $2.8 billion. If you’ve used Slack’s team-based messaging software, you know that one of its catchiest innovations is Slackbot, a helpful little avatar that pops up periodically to provide tips so jaunty that it seems human.

” ‘Such creativity can’t be programmed. Instead, much of it is minted by one of Slack’s 180 employees, Anna Pickard, the 38-year-old editorial director. She earned a theater degree from Britain’s Manchester Metropolitan University before discovering that she hated the constant snubs of auditions that didn’t work out. After winning acclaim for her blogging, videogame writing and cat impersonations, she found her way into tech, where she cooks up zany replies to users who type in ‘I love you, Slackbot.’ It’s her mission, Pickard explains, ‘to provide users with extra bits of surprise and delight.’ The pay is good; the stock options, even better.

“What kind of boss hires a thwarted actress for a business-to-business software startup? Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s 42-year-old cofounder and CEO, whose estimated double-digit stake in the company could be worth $300 million or more. He’s the proud holder of an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science.

” ‘Studying philosophy taught me two things,’ says Butterfield, sitting in his office in San Francisco’s South of Market district, a neighborhood almost entirely dedicated to the cult of coding. ‘I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings. And when I studied the history of science, I learned about the ways that everyone believes something is true — like the old notion of some kind of ether in the air propagating gravitational forces — until they realized that it wasn’t true.’ …

“Considering that Butterfield spent his early 20s trying to make sense of Wittgenstein’s writings, sorting out corporate knowledge might seem simple.

“And he’s far from alone. Throughout the major U.S. tech hubs, whether Silicon Valley or Seattle, Boston or Austin, Tex., software companies are discovering that liberal arts thinking makes them stronger.  Engineers may still command the biggest salaries, but at disruptive juggernauts such as Facebook and Uber, the war for talent has moved to nontechnical jobs, particularly sales and marketing. The more that audacious coders dream of changing the world, the more they need to fill their companies with social alchemists who can connect with customers — and make progress seem pleasant.”

Lots more at Forbes showing that the humanities have practical applications (here). All good. But let’s not forget that there is more to life than the purely practical. Liberal arts can benefit people in other ways besides helping them get jobs.

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The Artist on the Bridge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 19, 2017| 6 Comments »


Image: Ida Schmulowitz
Artist Ida Schmulowitz says, “I have painted landscapes outside from a pedestrian bridge overlooking a highway since 1983. I feel a very strong bond to this particular place.”

My friend and former boss Meredith Fife Day, an artist, put up an intriguing Facebook post not long ago. It was about the work of a Rhode Island artist who has been painting the view from the bridge at India Point over and over since 1983. No two paintings alike.

Meredith wrote, “Ida Schmulowitz of Providence has painted on site on a pedestrian bridge over the highway near her home and studio for more than 30 years. No camera. No sizing canvases to fit her easel. No hesitation to return again and again until the painting is finished. The paintings are on canvas and average 6-by-8 feet. …

“I had the good fortune of meeting the artist and writing about her work for Art New England 10 years ago. Here is an excerpt from that review:

“ ‘Applying paint in thin layers Schmulowitz often took a morning painting back out at sunset months after it was begun. A pale sky gone peachy-orange carries its history and alludes to color’s role in the passage of time. As highway shadows lengthened at the end of the day, their geometry became more explicit and their hue more saturated. Footprints left in the foreground from walking on the canvas to reach the upper edges mimic brushmarks. The confidence that comes with knowing a site, and developing over the years a vocabulary that expresses its essence, unleashes great intuitive force. That force explodes in these works.’ “

At her website, Schmulowitz explains, “I feel a very strong bond to this particular place (India Point). I’ve felt compelled to record it year after year in all seasons and times of the day. I struggle with trying to combine the structural essence of the place with my internal vision. Changes in the landscape itself, or shifting my vantage point just slightly, are the catalysts for creating a new series.”

I love the strong colors and shapes of the paintings on the website — and the way the shadows lengthen in views of the same scene. Choose from tabs “Bridge View,” “Park View,” “Highway,” “School View,” “Stop Sign,” and “Studio View.”

Photo: Sandor Bodo
The artist says that on the way home after work, “I lay the wet canvas flat and drag it back flat through the streets to my studio. This contributes somewhat to an imperfect surface, that I like to work with, and feel it is part of the process.” 

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Extreme Jump Rope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 18, 2017| 5 Comments »


Photo: Metro
Double Dutch competitions are not just about jumping rope.

This past summer, I swung the jump rope with John on the porch as his kids threw themselves enthusiastically into the novelty of this time-honored activity.

Then we went online and checked out an advanced version: today’s competitive Double Dutch.

Gia Kourlas wrote about the phenomenon at the New York Times. “A pair of swirling ropes, two turners to maneuver them and at least one jumper to feel out the rhythm, slip seamlessly in between the ropes and bounce in perfect time. Double Dutch may sound like child’s play, but it’s more than just skipping rope. This game that came to life in the streets of New York City — practiced mainly by girls — is an integral piece of African-American culture.

“Double Dutch has been a competitive sport since the 1970s, its popularity in cities intertwined with the birth of hip-hop. While just about anyone can do it, the best practitioners use athleticism, finesse and musicality to transform it from a game into a choreographic feat. Yes, double Dutch is very much an art form. And who knew? It even has roots at Lincoln Center.

“Jill Sternheimer, the director of public programming at Lincoln Center, had no idea herself until she stumbled upon a video circulating on Facebook. The footage, from Skip Blumberg’s 1981 documentary ‘Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show,’ chronicled a competition held on the plaza.

“ ‘It blew my mind,’ she said. ‘I realized that I had to go back and find this history. It’s a story that I wanted to make sure was told from the viewpoint of an African-American woman.‘ …

“Ms. Sternheimer reached out to Kaisha S. Johnson, a founder of Women of Color in the Arts, who has produced events at Lincoln Center for the past 11 years. What moved Ms. Johnson about the video went beyond jumping.

“ ‘I saw all of the black and brown faces on the plaza of Lincoln Center,’ she said. ‘In my lifetime, I haven’t seen that happen ever again. I thought, we have to revitalize this competition, but it has to be more than just a competition.’ …

“Ms. Johnson said, ‘When I think about its living legacy, I think about choreographers and dancers like Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Camille A. Brown, who both integrated double Dutch into their work.’ …

“For [Brown], double Dutch is about identity and African-American culture. ‘It speaks to the African rhythms and African traditions that continue to be within African-American culture,’ she said. ‘It’s not just about the game play, it’s also about traditions — you can hear those rhythms and the complexity of the double Dutch games.’ ”

More at the New York Times, here.

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“Creaticity” Lowell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2017| 5 Comments »

Like many of New England’s postindustrial cities struggling to reinvent themselves, Lowell has attracted a thriving artistic community to its old warehouses.

And as a magnet for generations of immigrants since the Merrimack and Concord rivers were harnessed to power cotton mills in the 19th century, the city has also attract a rich array of cuisines and cultures.

The late U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas helped to create a popular national park in Lowell. Today, others are building on the city’s arts reputation to attract tourists while strengthening ties among the various nationalities.

Yesterday I decided to check out one of the city’s newest festivals, “Creaticity.” Despite good weather, music, food, giant bubbles, and booths that featured artisans of many ethnicities, the event didn’t have anything like the attendance of the city’s 31-year-old folk festival. But you couldn’t expect that. It probably just needs time to get established.

Here are a few Lowell scenes to give you a taste. The last photo is an editorial comment on how challenging it can be to unlock all the inherent beauty of a city like Lowell.

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RIP James J. Hackett

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 16, 2017| 12 Comments »

070314-james-hackettJames J. Hackett, storyteller and harness maker, Moate, Ireland, 1937-2017. Seen here visiting his Kelly cousins in Rhode Island.

The late James J. Hackett, quintessential Irish raconteur, did not have an easy life. But the joy he brought to people through his storytelling and kindness leads me to say he led the best kind of life.

I met James through his visits to his Kelly cousins in New Shoreham and wrote about him on the blog.

Turtle Bunbury, co-author with James Fennell of the Vanishing Ireland book series, interviewed James for volume 3, Recollections of Our Changing Times. He put these words on Facebook yesterday.

“Farewell, JJ Hackett (1937-2017), Harness Maker & Poet — Ballinakill, Moate, Co. Westmeath

“James Fennell and I are very sad to learn of the passing of James J Hackett last night, 14 September 2017. He was an absolute gentleman and an inspirational man who, perhaps more than anyone we encountered during the Vanishing Ireland project, personified the resilience and generosity of his generation. Here is his story from the third volume of the series, which we post as a tribute to JJ and as a salutation to his brother Michael.

‘There is no doubting that JJ Hackett is one of the more unusual farmers in the parish. He quotes Wordsworth while stoking the Stanley stove.[i] He has a pet crow who can recognise strangers. He is a fan of the philosopher Edmund Burke and he knows plenty about the Abbé Edgeworth from Longford who blessed King Louis XVI as he awaited his execution.[ii] He’s also written his own memoirs, ‘Days Gone By’, for which he is justly acclaimed across the county. His tales are thoughtful but upbeat and give considerable insight into the rough ride he’s had along the way.

‘ “I was born with a deformity,” he says. “My right hip was out and it’s still out. Nurse Brophy, the midwife, didn’t realise. There’s a poem about her. ‘Here comes Nurse Brophy on her new Raleigh bike, out by Mount Temple and home by the Pike’. I didn’t walk until I was seven years of age simply for the reason that I couldn’t walk.[iii] And to this day I do tire easily, especially walking behind a funeral. …

‘Calamity struck in early 1949, the very same dark winter’s night that his younger sister Margaret was born.

“We weren’t long home from school but a tree fell on top of me. It broke the collar-bone, the cranium and it done in the right knee. I was put in a wheelbarrow and taken to Mullingar Hospital, broken up. I never went back to school. I was in hospital for about a year and ten months and I couldn’t walk for about two years.” …

‘Daniel secured his son an apprenticeship as a harness maker with a saddlery and upholstery business in Moate.[xii] His co-workers were an unusual trio whom JJ refers to as “the three deaf mutes.” None of them could speak or hear. And one of them, John Casey from Limerick, was operating with a single eye. “He lost his left eye with a needle when he was making mattresses,” explains JJ. “That taught me to keep the face turned away when I made them. And yet he could turn a collar for a horse, a mule, a donkey or a jennet.”[xiii]

‘They were the elite of harness makers.” ’

For more text, some footnotes, and good photos, see Turtle Bunbury on Facebook. Or buy the book. I wish I had recorded James’s rich brogue. I can almost hear it in Turtle’s interview. Can you?

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New Photos from New England

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

Under gray skies or sunny skies, I never tire of the beauty of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Most of the photos are mine, but three were courtesy of Bo Zhao, Suzanne, and my husband.

We start off with the boathouse that is near the Old Manse and the famed North Bridge in Concord. You can see that the grasses at Minuteman National Park are changing into autumn attire.

On a morning walk, I saw a happy little snake where the bike path meets Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. I think it was a garter snake.

The Kindness Garden was on Blackstone Boulevard in Providence. The last time I walked by, I saw that people had taken whatever they needed of kind words, and there were only a couple left.

The picture of the sidewalk poem in Cambridge was taken by Bo. I wrote about that initiative here.

The photo of the beautiful message on New Shoreham’s Painted Rock was taken by Suzanne. And my husband snapped the funny Help Wanted sign at Summer Shack. I sent it to my cabaret-artist pal Lynn, who wrote back

Another [clam] openin’
Another show
My hand is bleeding
Please stanch the flow
The tips are fine
But my nails don’t grow
Another openin’ of
Another show

The purple flower is called Blazing Star, and it’s native to New Shoreham.

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Swamp Soccer, Cellphone Tossing, and More

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2017| 8 Comments »

Photo: Janne Körkkö for the New York Times
A team from Vihti, Finland, competing in the country’s 20th annual Swamp Soccer World Championships. Their mascot, a badger doll, is the one in the cage.

Gotta love those Finns. They have possibly the best education system in the world and all those unusual contests like wife carrying and cellphone tossing. Long, dark winters must make for desperate ideas about how to have fun in summer.

Andrew Keh writes at the New York Times, “There’s something strange going on in Finland. Over the past few decades, as it has all but disappeared from the global sports stage, this humble Nordic nation has sort of lost its sports mind.

“More than 2,000 people ventured to the remote backwaters of central Finland recently for the 20th annual Swamp Soccer World Championships. If you and your spouse want to compete in the Wife Carrying World Championships, you must come to Finland. The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships? Finland. The World Berry Picking Championship and the Air Guitar World Championships? Finland and Finland.

“ ‘We have some weird hobbies,’ said Paivi Kemppainen, 26, a staff member at the swamp soccer competition and master of the understatement.

“Just look at swamp soccer in Hyrynsalmi, a place where Jetta can achieve a small level of celebrity over the years. Jetta is a stuffed badger ensconced in a bird cage. She acts as a mascot of sorts for a team of 12 friends who make the seven-hour drive each year from Vihti, near Helsinki, for the competition. They bought the doll seven years ago from a junk store at a highway rest stop, and her fame around the swamp has grown ever since. A couple of years ago, she was interviewed by a local newspaper. …

“On Saturday morning … a bottle of vodka was being passed around (their preferred way, apparently, of warming up). It was about 10 o’clock. Soon it would be time for their first game of the day. They set Jetta aside and stripped off their outerwear, revealing skimpy blue wrestling singlets.

“Before they treaded into the mud, they were asked a question: Why?

“ ‘You can say you’re world champions of swamp soccer,’ said Matti Paulavaara, 34, one of the team members, after a contemplative pause. ‘How many can say that?’

“The genesis of swamp soccer was in 1998, when creative town officials in Hyrynsalmi cooked up a festival-like event that would make use of the area’s vast swamplands. Thirteen teams showed up for the first tournament. Since then, the competitive field has grown to about 200 teams. …

“People striding on seemingly firm ground would disappear suddenly into the soft earth, as if descending a stairway. Some tottered on their hands and knees, like babies. Others stood still, until they were waist-deep in muck. The scores were generally low. Many of the players were drunk. …

You play, you lose, you win — no one cares,’ said Sami Korhonen, 25, of Kajaani, who was playing in the tournament for the ninth time. ‘The whole game is so tough, you’re totally wiped out when you’re done.’ ”

More at the New York Times, here.

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Safira Reports on Teletubbies Village

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Photo: Safira’s Journey
Safira, an Indonesian blogger, visits the Teletubbies village to learn about earthquake-resistant housing.

I like the WordPress blog Safira’s Journey, by a young woman from Indonesia. In a July post, she visits an unusual village and takes pictures.

“My sister needs to make a report about Teletubbies Village in Yogyakarta. So, she asks me to take her to the place as I’m more familiar with Yogyakarta. It’s one of unique village or kampong in Yogyakarta.

“It is made for replacing the public’s house which ruined because of the earthquake in 2006. It was big earthquake and the victims about 6.234 people. It’s occurred at 5.55 in the morning for 57 seconds with moment magnitude of 6,2.

“Teletubbies domes village is from Domes For The World Foundation. It’s unique house and it can resist the earthquake. My sisters interviewed the people who living in one of the domes. She said, it’s comfortable and people are happy to live there. The domes village is one of the memorial from the earthquake.

“They even have annual even to memorizing the earthquake. They make the Teletubbies figures as the icons as you can see from my pictures. Who is that in the costumes? LOL”

More photos at Safira’s Journey.

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Rabbits Ride Sheep to Safety

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 12, 2017| 8 Comments »

Photo: Ferg Horn via Associated Press
Two rabbits sat on the back of sheep to avoid rising flood waters on a farm near Dunedin, New Zealand, in July.

As we have all seen recently, a silver lining to hurricane devastation is that people who otherwise would never meet reach out instinctively to help each other in the rising waters.

Here is a story of animals helping other animals, albeit unwittingly. It took place in New Zealand, before either Hurricane Harvey or Irma.

As Nick Perry reported at the Boston Globe, “Three wild rabbits managed to escape rising floodwaters in New Zealand by clambering aboard sheep and surfing to safety on their backs.

“Ferg Horne, 64, says he’s been farming since he left school at age 15 and has never seen anything quite like it.

“He was trudging through pelting rain to rescue a neighbor’s 40 sheep from the floodwaters [at] their South Island farm near Dunedin when he spotted some dark shapes from a distance.

“He was puzzled because he knew his neighbor, who was away in Russia attending a nephew’s wedding, didn’t have any black-faced sheep. As he got closer, he thought it might be debris from the storm, which had drenched the area and forced Horne to evacuate his home.

“Then he saw the bedraggled rabbits hitching a ride — two on one sheep and a third on another sheep.

‘‘ ‘I couldn’t believe it for a start,’ he said.

“Nobody else would believe him either without proof, he thought, so he got out his phone to take a photo, an image he figured his grandchildren would enjoy. In fact, he inadvertently shot a short video. …

“Horne herded the sheep to a patch of dry ground on the farm about 50 meters (164 feet) away. The sheep didn’t like it.

‘‘ ‘As they jumped through the water, the rabbits had a jolly good try at staying on,’’ Horne said.

“He said the rabbits appeared to cling onto the wool with their paws. As they approached the higher ground, the rabbits fell off but managed to climb a hedge to safety.”

More.

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