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Curl Up in a Bookshelf

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2017| 1 Comment »

Photo: Book and Bed Tokyo

As you may know, there are hotels made of ice and vacation accommodations in tree houses and tiny houses, but have you heard that in Tokyo, you can bed down in a bookshelf?

As Dominique Mosbergen reports at the Huffington Post, “There’s nothing better than cozying up in bed with a good book … or, as in the case of this Japanese hostel, a few thousand of them.

“Book and Bed is a small, 30-bed hostel in Tokyo where guests sleep in snug little cubbies hidden behind library shelves laden with books. (The word ‘snug’ may even be generous here, as the larger of the two room offerings measures just 6 by 4 feet).”

The hostel’s website is honest, Mosbergen reports. “ ‘The perfect setting for a good night’s sleep is something you will not find here. There are no comfortable mattresses, fluffy pillows nor lightweight and warm down duvets,’ the establishment warns. …

” ‘What we do offer is an experience while reading a book (or comic book). An experience shared by everyone at least once — the blissful “instant of falling asleep.” It is already 2 a.m. but you think just a little more … with heavy drooping eyelids you continue reading’ …

“It costs upwards of $34 a night to stay at Book and Bed. Each room comes with a simple mattress and reading light. There’s also free Wi-Fi.” More here.

As much as I love to read, I’m not sure I’m adventurous enough to sleep in a bookshelf. If I ever go to Japan, a traditional ryokan would probably have more appeal.

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When Shakespeare Spoke to a Troubled Soldier

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2017| 4 Comments »

Shakespeare continues to make headlines, working his magic on people from all walks of life — prisoners, refugee children, veterans, and more.

Recently, New York Times reporter Laura Collins-Hughes interviewed an Army veteran who found Shakespeare helped him over a trauma and who now uses the Bard to help other veterans.

Collins-Hughes writes, “Stephan Wolfert was drunk when he hopped off an Amtrak train somewhere in Montana, toting a rucksack of clothes and a cooler stocked with ice, peanut butter, bread and Miller High Life — bottles, not cans. It was 1991, he was 24, and he had recently seen his best friend fatally wounded in a military training exercise.

“His mind in need of a salve, he went to a play: ‘Richard III,’ the story of a king who was also a soldier. In Shakespeare’s words, he heard an echo of his own experience, and though he had been raised to believe that being a tough guy was the only way to be a man, something cracked open inside him.

“ ‘I was sobbing,’ Mr. Wolfert, now 50 and an actor, said recently over coffee in Chelsea. ‘I didn’t know you could have emotions out loud.’

“That road-to-Damascus moment — not coming to Jesus, but coming to Shakespeare — is part of the story that Mr. Wolfert tells in his solo show, ‘Cry Havoc!’ … Taking its title from Mark Antony’s speech over the slain Caesar in ‘Julius Caesar,’ it intercuts Mr. Wolfert’s own memories with text borrowed from Shakespeare. Decoupling those lines from their plays, Mr. Wolfert uses them to explore strength and duty, bravery and trauma, examining what it is to be in the military and what it is to carry that experience back into civilian life. …

“To Mr. Wolfert, who teaches controlled methods of accessing charged memories, the need to retool a lethal skill set for civilian life is a vital task that the military leaves people to figure out on their own.

“ ‘That’s something that we hold uniquely, I think, as veterans,’ he told [a] class. ‘We know what we’re capable of — even for the so-called peacetime or Cold War vets. The training’s still there. And I don’t care if you’re a clerk typist. You still fired a weapon at a human silhouette.’

“This, he believes, is where Shakespeare can prove an ally: as a means to understand trauma, and to start coming back from it.”

More at the NY Times, here. For more on Wolpert, check out a Shakespeare & Co. interview from last summer, here.

Photo: Folger Theatre
Actor Stephan Wolfert in 2014, performing his one-man show Cry “Havoc!” at the Folger Theatre in Washington, DC. The line is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

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Tough Ruck: An Alternative Marathon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 17, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Military Friends Foundation
Joining the Tough Ruck marathon means carrying a heavy load for 26.2 miles to raise money for the fallen and injured and their families. Acknowledged by the Boston Marathon.

I was out for my ordinary walk on Saturday when I soon realized I was accidentally in the way of a new kind of marathoner: soldiers carrying heavy rucksacks on their backs. They were pushing hard as they were at mile 25 of a 26.2-mile marathon.

The signs saying “Tough Ruck” didn’t tell me much, so when I got home, I looked on Google to see what this was all about.

From the website: “We are a group of military and civilians whose sole purpose is to Ruck in honor and in memory of our Fallen Service Members, Police, Firefighters and EMTs, while raising funds to support military families in times of need.

“We will walk a 26.2 mile course with our Rucks.  Military Friends Foundation is proud to announce the continuation of our partnership with the Boston Athletic Association, the National Park Service and the Old Manse for 2017.

“On April 15, 2013, the Tough Ruck members were at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and joined the first responders to help those that were injured by the horrific blasts. They truly exemplify the best of what our Nation is. …

“Each year Ruckers are awarded the first of the official Boston Marathon Medals and receive recognition from the Boston Athletic Association.

“Tough Ruck participants are made up of any member of the Armed Forces currently serving, Veterans, First Responders, or Civilians. This extends across borders and is an open invite to our allied brothers and sisters around the world.
Regardless of a Rucker’s branch of service, rank, or position, each Rucker is a person who has volunteered to band together and do something to honor our Fallen Soldiers. …

“Ruckers push themselves and are an exemplar of drive, determination, and motivation. We ask each Rucker to push him or herself to their max potential and NEVER GIVE UP. Ruckers leave all egos, negative attitudes, and apathy at the start line. You are a member of a team. …

“When you register you will be asked to select one of three a divisions.  Ruck sacks will be weighed in prior to the start time and immediately after crossing the finish line.  You will NOT be permitted to ruck if your ruck sack does not weigh in at a minimum of 15 pounds.

“Military Division – Open to all active military and veterans and retirees.  Each Rucker will wear a: blouse, trousers, safety belt, regulation issued boots, and a ruck/assault pack/regulation pack issued by branch of service.  The minimum weight in the military division is 35 pounds.

“Heavy Weight Division – Ruckers in the heavy weight division will carry a minimum of 35 pounds at weigh in and at the finish line.

“Light Weight Division – Ruckers in the light weight division will carry a minimum of 15 pounds at weigh in and at the finish line.”

I didn’t realize something was up until I heard people clapping and cheering them on outside the Colonial Inn. I love the symbolism of sharing a heavy burden.

Read more here.

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Seasons Changing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 16, 2017| 2 Comments »

As spring belatedly decided to show up in our neck of the woods, a Hollywood movie crew turned the town into a Christmas set, building a crèche in front of a picturesque church, decorating store windows with candy canes, snowmen, and plastic poinsettias — and spreading fake snow on lawns that had barely recovered from an April 1 blizzard. It was a little weird. One friend said she looked up from washing dishes at her kitchen window and saw what looked like a gigantic spaceship hovering over the trees. It was the boom for the cameraman.

In more seasonal news, spring flowers began to poke out. Woodland walks were taken. Mushrooms and lichens were admired.

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Your Urban Diary Can Build a Better City

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 15, 2017| 5 Comments »

Photo: Chuck Wolfe
Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood. Photographic urban diaries can help residents absorb what there are seeing and can ultimately influence city planning.

Cities are organic, changing, blossoming, decaying amalgams of individuals, buildings, dumps, businesses, trees, animals — so many elements that it is impossible to put your finger on what makes a great city great. It is even hard to get agreement on whether or not a particular city is great.

Seattle is a city that is very conscious of its idealistic character. And it’s one that keeps reaching higher.

Knute Berger at Crosscut writes, “No one wants a ‘better city’ more than Seattleites. … If anything is in our civic DNA, it is the drive of commerce and the determination to build not just a better city, but the ideal one: prosperous, just, beautiful.

“Tall order, and one around which there is much dispute. Charles Wolfe, a local land-use lawyer, author and urban observer has a suggestion to help us sort through some of our conflicts. He touts the personal documentation of the city we live in, urging us to create urban ‘diaries.’

“This isn’t self-indulgent ‘journaling’ but a thoughtful process of observing and recording a city — what works, where human activities thrive and what evokes our emotional responses.

“Wolfe’s latest book is Seeing the Better City (Island Press, $30), which is described as a tool kit for ‘how to explore, observe, and improve urban space.’ Wolfe — who has written for Crosscut and who is a friend — says the answer to a better city doesn’t start with a white board, an attitude or a bushel of land-use ordinances; it begins at the level of human experience and how we train ourselves to see it and understand it.

“Wolfe’s main medium is photography, aided by technology — geo-mapping, social media — to record his impressions and observations, which might range from how bikes, trains and pedestrians share space in Nice, France, to a homeless person’s tent with a grand view of Elliott Bay. …

“Why is keeping an urban diary worthwhile? Wolfe argues that it trains us to be better citizens, to care more and understand more about where we live. Therefore, we might be more motivated to attend meetings or offer insights and solutions into the planning process. …

“Wolfe’s book tells us urban diarists can also be useful to planners and policymakers. An urban diary ‘walk and talk’ workshop in Redmond created diaries of the town’s historic core — and that then informed the planning process. … When we all act like flâneurs, ‘trickle up’ urban planning can result. …

We don’t need to travel the world to be an urban diarist. Our own stomping grounds offer an infinite opportunity to feel and observe.”

More here.

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Performance Art with Swedish Choirs

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Maria Popova at Brainpickings tweeted recently about artist Marina Abramović’s new production, “The Cleaner,” noting that it incorporated 40 Swedish choral groups. I couldn’t confirm that the choirs were 40 in number, but it looks like they were diverse.

At Deutsche Welle, Julia Hitz reports on her March 2017 visit to “The Cleaner.”

“Visitors had to leave all their personal belongings at the entrance and were allowed to stay as long as they wanted, becoming part of the performance. In fact, they were the actual performance. …

“Choirs and soloists are part of the performance. A group of professional singers connects the different choirs performing one after the other, resulting in a continuous, eight-hour-long musical performance.

” ‘They’re really a reflection of Sweden, like a small Stockholm: There are choirs of immigrants, such as the Iraqi Women’s Choir or the Bulgarian Choir, as well as traditional Swedish men choirs and church choirs, singing classical songs. Some solo musicians are also part of the performance,’ explains Catrin Lundqvist from Moderna Museet, who picked the choirs with Abramović and choreographer Lynsey Peisinger in a months-long process [that also involved] finding the 29 performers who are accompanying and guiding spectators through …

” ‘The Cleaner’ [was] performed daily at the Eric Ericson Hall in Stockholm through March 5, 2017. [Re-performances] of Abramović’s works are held through May 21, 2017. The retrospective will travel to Denmark and then to the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in Germany next year, from April 20 – August 12, 2018.”

Some critics have called Marina Abramović too egocentric — for example, in the recent MoMA performance that had museum goers lining up for hours to sit and gaze into her eyes. But Maria Popova read her autobiography and feels sympathy for the traumatic childhood that shaped the artist. Popova posts this quote from the book:

‘When one of my baby teeth fell out and the bleeding wouldn’t stop, everyone thought I might have hemophilia so I was put in the hospital for a year. That was the happiest, most wonderful time of my life. Everybody was taking care of me and nobody was punishing me. I never felt at home in my own home and I never feel at home anywhere.’

Read about the Swedish performance of “The Cleaners” here and about Maria Popova’s take on the artist here.

Photo: Moderna Museet/Åsa Lundén
Marina Abramović’s “The Cleaner” performed in Stockholm.

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Meals on Wheels: A New Angle

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

Photo: CivilEats
The rooftop garden at Montreal’s Santropol Roulant, which has a Meals on Wheels program that addresses food waste.

Recent U.S. news stories suggest that Meals on Wheels in this country is about to lose some of its funding, but in Canada, the program for housebound residents has been growing and innovating for years. It now hopes to share its knowledge.

Meredith Bethune writes at CivilEats, “The rooftop garden at Santropol Roulant in Montreal looks like any other at first glance, with 40 self-watering containers and a small greenhouse lining the 1,500-square-foot rooftop. …

“Santropol Roulant—’the Rolling Santropol’ in French, is named after the café at which the founders previously worked. It was originally founded in 1995 to connect youth with seniors, and over the past 20 years it has expanded to include a Meals-on-Wheels food delivery program, a rooftop garden to grow food for those meals, including compost for the garden, a three-acre farm off site, and much more. …

“The Roulant’s Meals-on-Wheels program is staffed by volunteers who cook and deliver about 100 meals per day, five days a week to seniors and other local clients with a loss of autonomy….

“The power of waste reduction became an important part of the Roulant’s work in 2001, before it had established an agriculture program. Kitchen scraps were collected and delivered to a community garden, eventually reducing their waste by 40 percent. Three years later, the group began experimenting with urban farming techniques, growing produce for the kitchen in unused spaces like balconies, patios, and rooftops. …

“The Roulant also supports several collectives that use space in their building, including SantroVelo, a bike collective that began in 1996 as a place to store delivery bikes or fix flats. Today, the building houses beekeepers, worm composters, mushroom growers, and urban fruit-picking collectives, all of which function like autonomous teenagers: They live at home, but operate independently. …

“While the Roulant’s waste reduction methods have come a long way since in 2001—the vermicompost collective now hosts several long tables and towers of soil-making worms in the basement—they can’t compost every type of waste, particularly leftover cooked food and meals. The kitchen aims to prepare precisely as much food as they need to serve their clients each day, sometimes there are last-minute delivery cancellations and other mishaps.

“So in 2014, the Roulant began selling leftover products at what they call their ‘general store.’ … No one staffs the general store. Instead, the Roulant posts a price list and a cash box for customers to make change, and they haven’t lost any money yet. Though this new program generates some extra revenue for the organization, its main purpose is waste reduction.

“Through innovative solutions like the general store … Santropol Roulant is trying to reduce waste as much as possible. They also want to share these strategies with other Meals-on-Wheels programs around North America.”  More here.

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Saving Appalachia’s Plants

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 12, 2017| 11 Comments »

Photo: North Carolina Arboretum
Plant physiologist Joe-Ann McCoy extracts seeds from black cohosh collected in western North Carolina.

A plant physiologist, worried about the future effects of global warming on biodiversity in Appalachia, is not only preserving seeds but working to attract preservation-based economic development. It would be almost like getting a sponsor for one of the plants there, a plant whose roots are used in popular herbal remedies.

At Yale Environment 360, Nancy Averett writes, “When she can spare the time — away from the grant applications, journal articles, and economic reports strewn across her desk — plant physiologist Joe-Ann McCoy laces up her hiking boots and heads to the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina.

“Dodging copperheads and black bears, she winds her way deep into the forest, her eyes scanning the lush understory for black cohosh, a native plant whose roots have been used in herbal remedies for centuries, primarily to treat symptoms related to menopause. When she spots her quarry, McCoy gently pulls the plant’s seed pods — tiny brown orbs that rattle when shaken — off the stem and slips them into a paper envelope.

“The seeds inside those pods — which will be cleaned, vacuum-packed, and then stored in a freezer at -20 degrees Fahrenheit — give McCoy hope. As the director of the North Carolina Arboretum’s Germplasm Repository, her job is to preserve native seeds in this highly biodiverse area in southern Appalachia before climate change makes it impossible for some native vegetation to survive there.

“But the black cohosh holds another promise, as well. The plant’s roots are used in top-selling herbal remedies, and, if someone could succeed in growing black cohosh as a crop and manufacturing supplements here [it] could help drive economic development in this job-scarce region. …

“North Carolina [is] special in terms of biodiversity. Studies have documented more than 4,000 species of plants, 2,000 species of fungi, and 500 species of mosses and lichens in the region. Unlike much of the U.S. East Coast, during the last three ice ages the ground in this region did not freeze, which means the plants here have a much longer genetic history and more diversity than in other areas.

‘If I had to pick one place in the entire U.S. for this project,’ McCoy says, ‘it would be here. This is the ultimate spot.’ …

“When she first came to the arboretum, she focused on black cohosh and creating a robust seed collection from the plant’s entire geographic range — she has 22 different strains — and then growing plants from each strain so she would have enough seeds to back up her collection in three different repositories. These include two federal storage sites — in Ames, Iowa and Fort Collins, Colo. — plus the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.”

After cataloging the seeds, McCoy turns her attention to the economic possibilities. Read here about her work with investors. The Yale article also describes her ginseng efforts and her assistance to Cherokees who value plants used in traditional medicine.

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Off-the-Beaten-Path Ballet Hub

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 11, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: Danny Lawson/PA
The Royal Ballet gala is part of the programme celebrating Hull’s year as the UK City of Culture. 

Years ago, I read an article in which some famous theater person opined that, with money for the arts always tight, only major centers should be funded, not small theaters and arts programs out in the boondocks. I believed then and still believe that was the wrong way to go. Everyone deserves arts. And who’s to say where genius can be found?

Which is why I liked this story from the UK about the post-industrial city of Hull, where an impressive ballet school has been training talent for years.

Anita Singh, writes at the Telegraph, “A backstreet in Hull might seem a world away from the bright lights of the Royal Opera House. But one unassuming dance school in a converted church has discovered more ballet stars than any other in the UK.

“The Skelton Hooper School of Dance has sent what is believed to be a record 24 pupils to the Royal Ballet School, including the current head of The Royal Ballet, Kevin O’Hare.

“As a tribute to the city’s dance heritage, O’Hare is taking his company to Hull for the first time in 30 years. He will stage a gala performance starring Xander Parish, star soloist with Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet and another former pupil. …

“ ‘For me, Hull-born, bringing the Royal Ballet up to Hull for this special opening performance is fantastic,’ said O’Hare. … O’Hare and his brother, Michael, who is now senior ballet master with Birmingham Royal Ballet, studied at Skelton Hooper. …

“The school was founded by the late Vera Skelton and is now run by her daughter, Vanessa Hooper. ‘My mother trained most of the teachers we have. She was quite extraordinary — the first person to get someone into the Royal Ballet from the provinces,’ said Hooper, who charges just £3.75 a lesson. …

“Hooper said there is something special about the city. ‘Hull’s a difficult place to get to. You’ve got to go there out of curiosity,’ she said. ‘We’ve had to build our own little world on the periphery.’ ”

More here.

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Symphony of the Street

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

Composer Tod Machover never stops experimenting. He’s known for music that combines his electronic inventions with traditional instruments, he records street sounds to capture the ambiance of cities, and he works continuously to engage regular folks in the process of creation.

Linda Poon writes at CityLab, “It’s easy to disregard the hum of a city — the incessant honking or indistinct chattering — or to cast it off as noise pollution. … To the likes of Tod Machover, a composer who combines music with technology at the MIT Media Lab, these sounds are what makes a city sing.

“Machover has turned the sounds of Toronto and Edinburgh into symphonies that reflect the characters of each city. His first piece for an American city, Symphony in D, invited Detroiters in 2015 to contribute over 15,000 sounds unique to the city—drumming from the streets, sounds from factories, and spoken words by local poets—that were combined with instruments played by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

‘Like so many things in our culture, there’s a growing gap between experts and ordinary people, and I thought music is such a great laboratory to show how things can be different,’ says Machover.

” ‘So I wanted the project to be a representation of connecting people—no matter what their background was in music—as equals.’

“His latest project, called Project 305 and funded by the Knight Foundation, takes him to Miami, where he’s teamed up with the city’s New World Symphony [NWS] academy to create an audio and visual masterpiece. He’s helping lead community tours to collect sounds and videos, and working with schools to teach students how to do the same. …

“Typical urban noise, like the revving of a car engine, the ringing of a bicycle bell, or the pitter-patter of pedestrian footsteps, can be found in virtually any city. So how do you make an audio portrait feel particular to the town it’s supposed to reflect?

“Sometimes, it’s about incorporating the sounds that reflect a city’s history. Detroit, for example, was famously dubbed the Motor City for being the heart of America’s auto manufacturing industry. So Machover asked the community to send in recordings of different car engines, which he merged with Motown riffs, in homage to the city’s music scene. …

“NWS is also gathering clips of human chatter, a way of capturing the diasporas within Miami. The city is often called the capital of Latin America with immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Spanish-speaking countries making up the majority of the population. Spanish has become a dominant language, but ‘you hear the same words inflected with all kinds of different accents,’ says Machover.

“When all is done, the entire performance won’t be confined to the halls of the academy. Instead, it will also be projected onto the facade of the building and simultaneously broadcast in different neighborhoods throughout Miami.” More here.

I have attended two of Machover’s operas. I thought the one based on a story by Tolstoy was lovely, although the one written with former poet laureate Robert Pinsky didn’t work for me. Something about an inventor seeking immortality by entering his electronic system after death.

Photo: Bowers & Wilkins
Endlessly inventive composer Tod Machover is incorporating sounds of the city in his new music.

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A Restaurant Where Immigrants Are Treasured

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 9, 2017| 9 Comments »

Photo: Anna Mindess
One of Ba-Bite’s colorful salads: red cabbage with mung bean sprouts, dried figs, arugula and feta and the creamiest hummus. The restaurant is like a welcoming family for immigrant workers.

Lisa, who lives in Oakland, California, put this nice story about an Oakland restaurant on Facebook. If I ever go to Oakland, I’m going to visit Ba-Bite in person.

Anna Mindess writes at KQED Food, “They’ve won accolades for their silken hummus and rainbow of organic salads, but for the owners of Oakland’s Ba-Bite, the most precious thing the almost two-year old restaurant can display right now may be the Sanctuary Restaurant poster on their front door. …

“Ba-Bite is Hebrew for ‘at home.’ Even though most of Mica Talmor and Robert Gott’s employees don’t speak Hebrew, (besides English, they speak Spanish, Maya, and Arabic) they completely understand the concept. The majority of them — like most food service workers in the Bay Area — are immigrants. After walking across deserts at night, being shortchanged or abused in other restaurants where they could not complain, working at Ba-Bite feels like they have found a family.

“Russell Chable manages the kitchen at Ba-Bite and is responsible for set up, prepping, and cooking. He grew up in a tiny town in Mexico’s Yucatan. … He started as a dishwasher and worked his way up to his lead position in Ba-Bite.

“After eight years away from home, Russell missed his mom. Sure, he would talk to her on the phone every week, but he wanted to see her face. So this determined young man decided to build his parents a cell tower so that he could FaceTime with his mom. Six months ago, he made contact with a man back in Mexico who outlined what would be needed: laptops, cables and a cell tower. Russell had his uncle check out the man and then sent money. Now he uses FaceTime to talk to his mom every week, and his parents have a small business renting out computer and internet time. …

“Fatima Abudamos is from Jordan and works as cashier. She also holds the distinction as Ba-Bite’s best falafel shaper. As she stuffs the green balls with sheep’s milk feta, she says, ‘This is an amazing place, just like a family. I’ve worked here almost two years. Mica is not like a boss, she’s more like a friend. She doesn’t scream if you make a mistake; she explains things. I feel safe here; it’s my second family.’ …

““We pay all of our workers well,” says Gott. “Partly because we know how expensive it is to live here. My experience is that more often than not, immigrants are working multiple jobs or longer hours, and forgo taking time off at all costs, as they want to or need to make money. …

“[Food runner Kasandra Molina says,] ‘This space here doesn’t feel like a workplace, it feels like home. We all get along. They care about our opinions and feelings. They don’t treat us just as employees; it’s more like a family.’ ”

More at KQED, here.

Are you in Oakland? Check out Ba-Bite at 3905 Piedmont Ave. Phone: (510) 250-9526

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College Fund for Small Emergencies

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2017| 4 Comments »

College is expensive, and for students from low-income families, even a small emergency can throw the whole thing off course.

That is why colleges are beginning to get creative with techniques to keep students’ educational goals from derailing over relatively small but unexpected expenses.

Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker writes about one such college.

“Francis Dillon will tell you that the huge expenses associated with college aren’t necessarily what makes it hard for students of limited means to get through school. Often, it’s relatively small stuff that can have a huge impact.

“Formally, Dillon is a vice president for advancement of Stonehill College. But for years he has been the person those on campus turn to when a student can’t afford a new laptop, or a trip home during a vacation break, or to apply to graduate school — the kinds of expenses that many of their peers take for granted. …

“Tuition, room, and board at the private 2,500-student school in Easton runs about $55,000 a year. That’s not cheap, but it is often defrayed by scholarships and other financial aid. The dealbreakers are much smaller. …

“Two years ago, a benefactor surprised Stonehill with a gift of $117,000 that came with no restrictions. Stonehill officials, including Dillon, had a novel idea for it. They decided to create a small, permanent fund to take care of the little student crises they had been quietly addressing piecemeal. …

“When he thinks about students whose college careers may have been saved by emergency infusions of cash, Dillon can rattle off examples. But one of his favorites is a current Stonehill accounting student named Juan Lopez.

“Lopez grew up in a tough area on the South Side of Chicago called Little Village. He says when he was about 13, some gang members in his math class noticed his facility with numbers and tried to recruit him as a bookkeeper. He avoided getting involved, but school became a constant source of anxiety.

“A teacher encouraged him to enroll in a parochial school across town, from which he graduated as the valedictorian. From there, he was recruited to Stonehill. …

“At one point, he faced an unexpected crisis. His father had lost his job, and with it his family’s health insurance. Stonehill requires all its students to have health insurance.

“Enter Dillon, with a check for the required coverage. Lopez freely admits that it wasn’t the only time he has needed help.

” ‘If it wasn’t for this fund, I probably would [have been] out of here by the end of my freshman year,’ Lopez told me. …

“Instead, he is a junior with a 3.6 grade-point average. He’s been hired as a summer intern at a major Chicago accounting firm.” More here.

For folks struggling to pull themselves out of poverty, any unexpected expense can raise insurmountable barriers. Congrats to Stonehill College for this smart assistance.

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Giant Penguins

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Art: Senckenberg
The discovery of one of the oldest penguin fossils in the world reveals higher diversity of early penguins than previously thought.

Whenever I am tempted to think that everything on the planet has been discovered, a new fossil turns up.

Melissa Breyer writes at TreeHugger that a recently unearthed penguin fossil is responsible for a small but significant adjustment to how we see our world.

“Along the Waipara River in New Zealand’s Canterbury region are sites rich in avian fossils, many of which were entombed in marine sand not long (relatively speaking) after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

“One of the more intriguing fossil finds there of late is that of a giant penguin discovered by ornithologist Dr. Gerald Mayr from the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research and a team of colleagues from New Zealand. The Waimanu penguin had a man-sized body length of 150 centimeters (5 feet) and … is among the oldest penguin fossils in the world.

“But what makes the Waimanu even more interesting is that the bones are significantly different from other penguin fossils from the same time period, revealing that the diversity of Paleocene penguins was higher than previously thought. …

” ‘This diversity indicates that the first representatives of penguins already arose during the age of dinosaurs.’ ” More here.

Pretty funny that in order to illustrate the size of the newly found penguin relative to a grown man, the Senckenberg Society put the man in a “penguin suit.”

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Interview Prep with Help from Actors

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 6, 2017| 7 Comments »

ArtsJournal posted an amusing story from ArtsAtlanta recently. It’s about learning to project the persona you want to project when you go to a job interview.

An arts official at Georgia Tech got the idea that actors could help awkward students who are moving out into the world. She started by contacting actors experienced in the art of drag.

Gail O’Neill writes, “Madison Cario, Georgia Tech’s Office of the Arts director, was walking across campus in the Spring of 2015 when she passed a career fair in progress.

“After noticing how uncomfortable the students looked in their business suits and corporate attire, Cario’s mind flashed to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The 40-year-old, all-male, contemporary ballet company — featuring men wearing makeup, tutus and wigs while dancing on pointe — was scheduled to perform at the Ferst Center in the coming weeks.

“Who better, thought Cario, than performers who’d perfected the art of drag to teach millennials how to transition from uniforms of hoodies and flip-flops into young professionals whose wardrobes reflected their career aspirations.

One year later, a half-day seminar titled Drag 101 was offered in anticipation of Tech’s next career day. …

“ ‘As with any performer,’ says Cario, ‘students [preparing for job interviews] are not just putting on a suit. They have to put on a persona and adopt a personality. They must embody the confidence and poise needed to take up space in a room, and engage in conversation.’

“The practice of nonartists turning to actors for guidance on how to adapt to unfamiliar situations and settings is not unprecedented.

“The late-Margaret Thatcher worked with a tutor at London’s National Theatre to help lower the pitch of her voice after she decided to run for Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. …

“The Alliance Theatre has institutionalized a program that teaches business clients how to apply the methodologies and mechanics of the theater to help improve presentation skills in corporate settings. …

“ ‘The skills, which are pejoratively called “soft skills,” are not taught on the job or at university,’ says J. Noble, cofounder of Alliance@Work and communications specialist at the Alliance’s education department. ‘Some people are naturally inclined to be present, empathetic and self-aware, but the majority of us aren’t as much as we should be. And we’re not given opportunities to explore, rehearse and refine those characteristics.’ …

“For Noble, a former director, mining the principles of authenticity, empathy and connection as an Alliance@Work coach is indistinguishable from his work with actors. ‘In both cases, the work is transformational,’ he says.”

Read more at ArtsAtlanta. And you can sign up for the Alliance program here.

I’ve had a couple public speaking classes with groups like that. The lessons haven’t really stuck, though. I’d rather be in a play and perform as someone other than me. But I did learn one thing from the video taken in my last class: I have a tendency to hunch my right shoulder when making a speech.

Who knew?

Photo: The New York Post
For young people starting out, job interviews can be intimidating. Coaching by actors may lessen the stage fright.

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Tea and Hygge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 5, 2017| 6 Comments »

Photo: Valentyn Volkov /Alamy
Hygge is the word Danes use to express “coziness and comfortable conviviality.” Think good friend, fireside, warm socks, cup of tea.

Upton Tea Imports in Massachusetts leads off its quarterly newsletters with little stories about the joy of tea in different time periods and parts of the world. The latest story offers background on the art of getting cozy, which the Danes call hygge, and which often involves a nice, hot cup of tea.

Upton Tea writes, “Half of the world’s happiest countries are Nordic, all of which have a penchant for hygge. [As of this writing, Denmark is] at the top of the happiness list and, perhaps coincidentally, seems to have the greatest affinity for hygge.

“Michael Booth (The Almost Nearly Perfect People) goes so far as to  claim, ‘Danes prize it more than ambergris and stardust.’ Is hygge the secret sauce to happiness, or is it just something that appeals to countries with few daylight hours during long winter months? …

“Hygge can be described as the appreciation of simple pleasures, enjoyed in a comfortable and esthetic environment in the company of close friends.”

In an article on hygge published in the New Yorker magazine, adds Upton Tea, “Anna Altman states … ‘Danish doctors recommend “tea and hygge” as a cure for the common cold.’

“It’s possible to hygge alone, wrapped in a flannel blanket with a cup of tea, but the true expression of hygge is joining with loved ones in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere.”

Nice. Tea and hygge. We knew this would get around to tea eventually. For more about hygge, check out the New Yorker article, here, and The Year of Living Danishly. And for the rest of the Upton Tea article — plus the impressive catalog — click here.

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