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Chef Edna Lewis

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 23, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Kinfolk.
Edna Lewis, sometimes called the “Grande Dame of Southern cooking.”

A long time ago, I made an Edna Lewis cake recipe that had been featured in the New York Times. Apart from its being delicious, the thing I remember most were curious little tips on cooking that she added. For example, she said to stir the batter only in one direction. To me that meant that I shouldn’t beat up on a cake while beating it.

Lewis died in 2006, a monumental figure in the world of cooking. At the Washington Post, Aaron Hutcherson wrote about taking a tour of Edna Lewis country.

“It was late afternoon when I checked into my hotel perched on the top of a hill in Virginia’s Piedmont region. The front-desk attendant mentioned the lovely view from my room as he handed me the keys. … With time to kill before my dinner reservation, I decided to rest. As I lay on the bed gazing out the window at the sun setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was struck by the beauty of this majestic setting — and I began to understand why Edna Lewis loved her birthplace so much.

“ ‘I grew up in Freetown, Virginia, a community of farming people,’ Lewis wrote in her 1976 memoir/cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking. ‘It wasn’t really a town. The name was adopted because the first residents had all been freed from chattel slavery and they wanted to be known as a town of Free People.’

“Throughout her career, Lewis’s work served as a means of preserving the memory of Freetown and its people, and to share that with the world through cooking. About 10 miles from the town of Orange, there isn’t much of Freetown still standing save for the remnants of a couple of buildings, but through the creation of the Edna Lewis Menu Trail, its legacy in this region lives on.

“Organized by the Orange County Office of Tourism, the menu trail launched on Thanksgiving in 2022 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Edna Lewis Cookbook, and it runs through Memorial Day. It includes seven restaurants within 33 miles of one another, whose menus are featuring recipes from Lewis’s cookbooks or dishes inspired by her.

“Often described as the ‘grande dame of Southern cooking,’ Lewis was an accomplished chef and cookbook author who helped increase America’s understanding of the breadth and elegance of Southern cuisine. ‘It’s not all fried chicken and greasy greens,’ she said in a 1990 Washington Post interview. Beyond that, Lewis inspired the now-ubiquitous farm-to-table movement by championing the virtues of growing one’s own food and cooking with local, seasonal ingredients. When she died in 2006, she had been honored by just about every American culinary group, including the Southern Foodways Alliance and the James Beard Foundation, and now her impact is resonating again.

“The menu trail was created to celebrate the place that shaped Lewis’s culinary philosophy and educate visitors and locals alike about what she stood for. ‘She always insisted this is the area where it all started,’ said her son Afeworki Paulos from his home in Georgia, and I was ready to explore this nurturing ground.

” ‘My first stop was ClearWater Fire Grill in Locust Grove, where the whipped sweet potatoes with brandy, brown sugar and freshly grated nutmeg were a lovely match for the simply seasoned pork chops draped with a pan sauce. My server’s bubbly warmth put me at ease after the 90-minute drive from D.C. And with every interaction along the trail, I began to realize I was on the receiving end of the Southern hospitality Lewis embodied.

“ ‘The memories of that community that she grew up in and the care they took of each other and the hope they had for their future left an indelible mark on her,’ Lewis’s niece Nina Williams-Mbengue said over the phone from her home in Colorado.

“Lewis was born in 1916, one of eight children, and she learned to cook from the people in Freetown, who lived an agrarian lifestyle. After her father died, she moved North at age 16, first to Washington and then New York, where she found work as a seamstress. In 1949, she partnered with a friend who knew of her cooking prowess to open Cafe Nicholson, a French-inspired restaurant frequented by artists and celebrities, and served as its head chef. The Edna Lewis Cookbook, her first book, was published in 1972 and explored a variety of cuisines while tying recipes to her focus on seasonality.

“Chef Andrew Eppley was drawn to that tendency when skimming through Lewis’s work to find a dish for his menu at Vintage Restaurant at The Inn at Willow Grove in Orange — the site of that evening’s dinner.

“He settled on a rabbit dish from Lewis’s second book, The Taste of Country Cooking, then put his own creative spin on it. … ‘Some people come down and they don’t know who Edna Lewis is,’ Eppley said. ‘It creates a really great talking point and experience for our guests, giving them a little bit of history of culinary arts in the region, and everything she did not just for Southern cooking but cooking in general.’ …

“Eppley said what most stood out about Lewis’s cooking was the love. ‘It wasn’t like, “I’m trying to be the best in the world,” ‘ he said. ‘She was trying to cook food that she loves for the people and the community she loves.’ …

“Lewis ‘was very driven to let people know the contributions of African Americans to cooking,’ her niece Williams-Mbengue said. …

“Next to the [Bethel Baptist Church in Unionville] under a canopy of trees, there’s a group of picnic tables where I imagine Edna Lewis may have sat when she made her annual pilgrimage for the church’s summer revival.

“ ‘Her and my mother would serve food outside the church for revival,’ said family friend Mary Freeman, whose father farmed with Lewis’s brother. ‘She wasn’t a Southern cook who had all the awards when I was a kid. She was just Miss Edna.’ On top of the delicious pies, cakes and tarts Lewis prepared, Freeman remembers her as ‘a very quiet-spirited lady’ who was ‘very self-assured, very confident.’ ” More at the Post, here. Mouth-watering pictures.

A nice Kinfolk article — with no firewall — delves deeper into Lewis’s biography. Read it here.

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Bonus Post: Shagufa Succeeds

Posted in Uncategorized on May 22, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Shagufa got her master’s at Brandeis University on Sunday. So there, Taliban!

A quick update on Shagufa Habibi of Herat, Afghanistan, a determined young woman I first wrote about here. (You can find related articles by searching on her name at this blog or on the web.)

As everybody knows, the Taliban are now running Afghanistan and are opposed to higher education — or almost any kind of education — for girls and women. Well, too bad! Shagufa spent the last two years studying at Brandeis University, and yesterday she was awarded her master’s degree.

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The Gift of Empathy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 22, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Manufactured Housing Village.
Willow Pines mobile home park in Kaysville, Utah. An empathetic woman makes the manufactured housing parks she manages truly homes.

At a manufactured housing park in Utah, as Cathy Free reports at the Washington Post, one woman is making a huge difference in residents’ sense of security.

“Pat Blake, who manages two mobile home communities in Utah, began to notice some of the children who lived there seemed hungry after parents came to her to inquire about food assistance. Blake was one of seven siblings raised by a single mom. She knew hunger personally.

“She started using some of her own money to pick up extra jars of peanut butter, cans of soup and bread at the grocery store. Then she let her residents know to come to her office and help themselves.

“ ‘It doesn’t matter whether a child lives in a mobile home or in a fancy apartment — they all deserve to be fed,’ she said, explaining that there are 120 families in one community and 45 in another at the mobile home parks in Davis County. …

“With rent increases hitting most mobile home communities in recent years, more families are finding it difficult to afford groceries and housing, she said.

“ ‘I started bringing food in for people, just a little at a time,’ said Blake, who has been managing the two parks since 2020. “And then I realized that I had a huge room behind my office that wasn’t being used, and I could do more.’

“Blake, 79, lives in a mobile home in Apple Acres, one of the communities that she manages. She said she asked a friend to help install some shelves in the large room at the second mobile home park, Willow Pines, so she could turn it into a pantry.

“Then she stepped it up a level. She contacted the Bountiful Food Pantry, which collects donated food and distributes it throughout Davis County, including in Fruit Heights City, where she lives. They started coming twice a month to offer groceries to residents.

“Blake stocked the shelves of her pantry with some of the donated items, and she told her tenants they could come by on Thursdays to pick up any extra staples they needed.

She used her savings to buy a refrigerator to hold meat, cheese, eggs and gallons of milk, she said.

“Almost three years later, she said residents at Apple Acres and Willow Pines now have enough to eat, regardless of their family size or financial circumstances. …

“Linda Wilson lives at Willow Pines and is among those who have felt the pinch of rising food and housing costs. Three years ago, Wilson, 75, took in her daughter and three grandchildren when they were going through a difficult time, she said. They are still living with her in her mobile home. …

“ ‘I’ve lived in several mobile home parks over the years, and I’ve never run across a manager like Pat,’ she said. ‘She helped me with some rental assistance, and she takes the time to get to know every resident here and what their needs are.’

“Before Blake became manager of Willow Pines, Maribel Urquizo said she often struggled to buy groceries for her three children in the week before her husband, who works with granite countertops, received his regular paycheck.

“ ‘It was a little hard sometimes to make ends meet,’ said Urquizo, 29. ‘Now we can go to Pat’s office, and she gives us what we need to get us through. Milk, eggs, snacks for the kids — she has it all.’ …

“Blake said she understands the struggles of many of her tenants because she’s been there. She dropped out of school at 13 to help look after her siblings and bring in extra money from babysitting kids in her neighborhood, she said, noting that she eventually received her high school diploma at age 29. …

“Besides keeping food in her residents’ refrigerators, Blake said she makes sure they have Christmas presents every year and that children have backpacks and school supplies.

“The families she helps often thank her by bringing her casseroles, cookies and jars of salsa made with the free groceries they pick up every other week.

“She said she can go to sleep content at night knowing that nobody at Apple Acres and Willow Pines is hungry.

“ ‘Needing groceries is nothing to be ashamed of,’ she said. ‘We could all use a boost sometimes. These families need someone, and I’m happy that I can be that person to help. More at the Post, here.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that protection from rising rents at mobile parks is often best tackled by joining with neighbors to become a Resident Owned Community. Read about how to do that here.

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Artist’s Heartfelt Paper Cutting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 21, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Kate Laster.
Kate Laster’s paper cutout “Waiting Game” (2022).

I’ve been reading almost more than I can bear lately about the Holocaust, so when I saw this unusual use of a Jewish paper-cutting tradition at Hyperallergic, it really spoke to me.

Isabella Segalovich wrote, “April 5 marked the first night of Passover. Upholding Jewish tradition, we reclined in our chairs, sang boisterously, and drank ample wine. We reveled in the joy and safety many of us are thankful to have in the present while holding close the memory of those that came before us. Alaskan-born Jewish artist Kate Laster carves those memories into delicate paper cuts. Then, she dunks that paper in the ocean.

“ ‘My art is about the people we carry with us,’ she told Hyperallergic in an interview.

“Laster’s first memories are of snow floating on water. She grew up moving from place to place in rural Alaska, from temperate rainforest of Juneau to the icy treeless wilderness in Utqiaġvik. In a world ‘dense with imagination,’ as she described it, she learned to whittle scraps of wood into small figures while hearing stories and poetry by a warm fireside. She said she first saw language being used as a ‘visual medium in the sense of people putting time aside and really either being in nature or being in warm space talking.’

“Today, she uses the visual force behind letters themselves, cutting paper into vibrant collages with fragments of poems — some collected, some written by her. The paper is thoroughly weathered as stencils, multiplying its message as it’s doused in spray paint again and again. Then, she painstakingly laminates the paper by hand, using ‘really scruffy bits of tape.’ The ritual is completed at sundown when Laster dips her works into the Pacific Ocean. As the paper undulates and floats, she understands the waves, part of a living, ‘primordial soup,’ to be reading the text on the pages.

“Laster’s youth in Alaska is proof that the Jewish diaspora spreads far beyond the urban landscape. But for all of us, Jewish practices are deeply tied to the natural world. Festivals begin with the setting sun. … As the great star sets, Laster lifts the text up from the water. And as drips fall off its edges, she uses the hollow paper cut as a viewfinder, so words are filled with the sky. 

“The water that laps at Laster’s paper cuts is of the same body that carried our ancestors as they wandered the world, searching for home and safety. “…

“Laster is one of a growing number of anti-Zionist American Jews. For those who do not wish to move to Israel, it’s common to lift up and celebrate the beauty of the diaspora. Following the love of movement, this celebration is also a deep love of the places we find ourselves now. For the Laster, that place is the Bay Area, where the Mexican and Chicano paper-cutting tradition of papel picado is tied to trees lining the Mission, a historically Latinx neighborhood. Chinese paper cuts — 窗花 chuāng huā, or ‘window flowers’ — bloom in glass panes. …

“But this artist’s work is also a part of her own ancestry. Jewish paper cutting is a centuries-old tradition that used to be much more commonplace. It was practiced by both professionals and amateurs at home, not only for marriage contracts or ketubot, but also for holidays like Shavuot and Sukkot. Laster now sees herself as a part of the newest generation carrying it forth. With no other materials needed than paper and a sharp edge, she sees the beauty in paper cutting’s accessibility.

“The belief that everyone has a fundamental right to engage with and create art is central to Laster’s work, both in and outside of her visual practice. She runs suggested donation-based art history classes, and has held a position as a studio assistant at Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program, a free-of-charge art studio for unhoused and low-income residents of the Tenderloin. Today, she works as a studio facilitator at the NIAD Art Center, a creative space for artists with disabilities. …

“ ‘Printmaking and paper cut in general are about accessibility, making a message, a transmission, go as far as possible,’ she said. Laster is also in the tradition of modern Jewish graphic arts: Words that dance and shout diagonally across the page recall the utopian dreams of the 1920s Eastern European Kultur-Lige (Culture League) artists like El Lissitzky and Nathan Altman. …

“Messages can be interpreted differently depending on who hears them. ‘This is the struggle of sharing, of trying to convey anything you feel to someone else. And knowing once it’s public, it can be altered and transformed and interpreted,’ Laster noted. ‘I revel in that.’

“Laster’s work is also deeply personal, as she grieves the loss of her father during the COVID-19 pandemic. In ‘Kaddish Reunion’ (2021) a self-portrait shows the artist sitting by her father’s bedside. Spray-painted shapes bleed into each other. The text typical of her pieces is replaced by swirls, stars, and leaves. Shadows of these words return in another laminated book. Lovingly saved scraps from past paper cuts are laminated alongside a plastic bag that says ‘THANK YOU.’ The only full words are on the cover: ‘I don’t know how to say goodbye.‘

“Laster’s father was a pilot of a small bush plane. As a child, she studied the dense text and cartoons of flight emergency manuals, replicated today in her shining messages of grief, love, and hope. Perhaps the Haggadah is another kind of emergency manual: a guide on how to keep on going?

“On Passover, we remember those that came before us and those that we lost. … We taste the bitter herbs of longing and grief, but also wash down dry matzoh with sweet wine. And most importantly, we argue, laugh, and tell stories of our survival.”

More at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall. Check out the short video of a paper cutout floating on water.

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Tech Tackles “Forever Chemicals”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 20, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Do we know what’s in our drinking water? University of British Columbia researchers are working on an experimental material to remove toxic “forever chemicals” from water. 

As soon as we learn about a new hazard to humans, it seems, science labs pop up to address it. Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about “forever chemicals,” dangerous compounds that are often in drinking water. Thank goodness, a variety of labs are on the case.

For example, as Allyson Chiu reports at the Washington Post, Canadian researchers “have developed a method to filter toxic ‘forever chemicals’ from water and potentially destroy the long-lasting compounds permanently.

“Commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they can persist in the environment for years, these hazardous compounds have long troubled environmentalists and regulators. Their harmful effects on human health are well documented, but their ubiquitous use and the challenges in breaking them down have complicated efforts to eliminate them.

“Pressure to do so is growing. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the nation’s first drinking-water standards requiring water utilities to reduce levels of PFAS — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

The new technology, described by one of its developers as a ‘Brita filter, but a thousand times better,’ could help address the problem, experts say.

“ ‘The potential impact will be huge,’ said Madjid Mohseni, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of British Columbia who led the research. …

“Polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances are a class of thousands of different chemicals with varying properties. The highly durable chemicals have been used for decades to make nonstick cookware, moisture-repellent fabrics and flame-retardant equipment, and they are found in other commonly used consumer goods such as cosmetics and food packaging.

“Several U.S. states and other countries have banned certain types of PFAS, and many major companies say they have discontinued their use, but the compounds have shown up in the water supplies of communities across the country and the world. The chemicals have been linked to infertility, thyroid problems and several types of cancer.

“Technologies already exist to remove PFAS from water, but Mohseni and other experts say these approaches have limitations.

“Activated carbon, for example, can filter what is known as long-chain PFAS but does not as effectively trap the shorter-chain variants of the chemicals. Short-chain PFAS, some of which can be toxic at low doses, are becoming more prevalent as many manufacturers use them as a replacement for the long-chain compounds.

“Existing methods also typically create waste products that contain high concentrations of PFAS, which often end up in landfills or are incinerated, said Erik Olson, a senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“From landfills, the harmful chemicals could leech back into the environment. Burning them is not ideal, either. ‘Only extremely high-temperature incineration can even start to destroy PFAS,’ Olson said. ‘Normal incineration just simply sends PFAS up the smokestack.’

“Mohseni said the material his team developed — which looks like tiny porous plastic beads — can remove long- and short-chain chemicals at rates that match or exceed industry standards. The PFAS it captures could be stripped away, also making the beads potentially reusable or recyclable, he said.

“Additionally, Mohseni said, the team engineered techniques designed to break the leftover PFAS down into harmless compounds.

“The beads eventually could be used in products to filter water in homes, industrial sites and at municipal levels, he added. However, for in-home applications, users would have to send the used filters to centralized locations for regeneration or recycling, and for the PFAS to be broken down fully — somewhat like how some used coffee pods are sent back to manufacturers for recycling, Mohseni said.

“His team’s findings have been published in several peer-reviewed journals.

“Although the technology is promising, experts not involved in the research say it has yet to be proved in real-world settings at scale. The UBC research team has launched pilot trials in British Columbia, but none of the sites are yet sources of drinking water. …

“Removing the chemicals from water and breaking them down is only part of the solution to the PFAS problem, said Cora Young, an associate professor of chemistry at York University in Toronto who studies the chemicals.

“ ‘Destroying PFAS that already exist is a useful thing, but a lot of other approaches have to be used to actually reduce its impact as an environmental problem,’ Young said.”

More at the Post, here. Good on you, Canada!

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Refugees Help Tornado Victims

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Fatih Aktas / Anadolu Agency / Getty via the Atlantic.
Cleaning up from the fierce tornado that struck Mississippi in March 2023.

Sometimes people who have suffered become hardened to the misfortunes of others. But very often when they see suffering, they want to reach out and help.

Daniel Wu reported recently at the Washington Post about refugees from Ukraine, currently living in Minnesota, who rushed to provide assistance in Mississippi after the March tornado.

“The seven Ukrainians set out just before midnight to make the long drive to their destination,” Wu wrote. “They were on an aid mission to a grimly familiar scene of devastated communities and leveled homes.

“But the refugees were thousands of miles from their homeland and the war that changed their lives. Their journey wound down Interstate 55, starting in Minnesota, where they had resettled just months earlier, and ending in a disaster zone wracked not by bombs, but by the wind: several towns in Mississippi recovering from a devastating tornado that killed at least 25 in late March.

“Dmytro Fedirko, a 34-year-old former van driver, puzzled through American road signs on his first road trip in the country. With him were couple Denys Pavliuk and Viktoriia Hasiuk, 19 and 18, who had arrived in the United States 10 days before. Iryna Hrebenyk, a 51-year-old hairdresser turned forklift operator for Home Depot, tried to stay awake — she joined the group after a night shift, with only a few hours of sleep in between.

“They had all been in the United States for a few months at most, thrust by war from cities and towns across Ukraine into new lives in Minnesota that had not yet settled — they had immigration forms to complete, job interviews to prepare for and families to support.

“But they said they decided, without hesitation, to put that on hold last week upon hearing news of the tornado that leveled towns in Mississippi. They made the 16-hour drive south to donate bottled water and volunteer with aid workers, buoyed by the idea that they could help a community facing a similar struggle to theirs.

“ ‘We had to leave our home,’ Pavliuk told the Washington Post in Ukrainian, in an interview interpreted by Hrebenyk. ‘And they don’t have a place to go back, either.’ …

“Pavliuk’s group had all been helped by the same nonprofit organization, the American Service. Aswar Rahman, a Minneapolis-based digital producer, founded the agency in March 2022 after visiting the Polish-Ukrainian border and seeing the challenges facing refugees there, he said. A month later, when the Biden administration’s Uniting for Ukraine program created a path for Ukrainians with an American sponsor to secure two-year stays in the United States, the American Service started helping refugees resettle in Minneapolis.

“Rahman said he was struck by the kinship that grew in the apartment building where the American Service found housing for Ukrainian refugees. Those who had been there for a few weeks or months were quick to help with the myriad challenges facing new arrivals: like buying SIM cards, applying for Social Security numbers and completing post-arrival immigration forms.

“ ‘I feel like I have a big family,’ said the American Service’s Minnesota director, Sofiia Rudenko, who arrived in the United States from Ukraine in late December. ‘realized that last week, I didn’t even cook because my neighbors kept feeding me every day.’

“That spirit convinced Rahman that the refugees wouldn’t hesitate to help other communities in need, too. When he saw news of the March 24 tornadoes that devastated Mississippi towns, he pitched the idea of taking a team to deliver aid. Rudenko, 22, thought it was a great idea. …

“Everyone leaped at the proposal. The team of eight — seven recent Ukrainian arrivals, accompanied by Rahman — had to turn down additional volunteers because they no longer had room in their cars, Rahman said. None of the Ukrainians had been in the United States for longer than three months. Pavliuk and Hasiuk didn’t mind that it had been less than two weeks since they arrived. …

“The group piled into two cars late Monday night and drove to Memphis, where they rented a U-Haul van and bought several pallets of water bottles from a Costco. The Ukrainian group paid for the water themselves against Rahman’s protests, he said. …

“Rahman contacted the nonprofit Volunteer Mississippi to ask where the group could be of use. A coordinator directed them to a school being used as a distribution center in the city of Belzoni. They distributed the water in Belzoni on Wednesday. In the afternoon, the group drove farther south to Silver City and helped unload additional trucks of aid and supplies. …

“Rahman said their donation, about 13,000 bottles of water, probably wasn’t much compared with those by large corporate donors. But the backstory of the Ukrainian volunteers resonated, both in teary exchanges with other workers on the ground and with Volunteer Mississippi’s coordinators. …

“The group returned to Minneapolis on Thursday evening, just in time for several people to make their shifts at the Home Depot and for Pavliuk to make a weekend job interview.

“Now, the seven Ukrainians will resume the new starts they’re pursuing for themselves. All of them are grappling with the devastating toll that the war is taking on Ukraine and their family members there. But the trip to Mississippi lifted their spirits, Rudenko said, and the American Service is looking for other ways that the refugee community can volunteer in Minneapolis.

“ ‘That’s something that is special about our community,’ Rudenko said. ‘Because we want to share, to give, and to keep doing that because we feel better, and we feel that we are not alone.’ ”

More at the Post, here.

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If the Star Isn’t a Dancer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 18, 2023| 11 Comments »

Photo: Dale Robinette/ Lionsgate Publicity.
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are not primarily dancers, but thanks to coaching, they did a good job dancing in the film La La Land.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were film stars who were best known for dancing. But what if your stars need to dance but know no more steps than the average partygoer? For stunts, you get stunt experts, but do you also get experienced dancers to stand in? Can’t imagine how that would work.

Haley Hilton has the answer at Dance Magazine, “From Patrick Swayze lifting Jennifer Grey above his head in Dirty Dancing, to John Travolta and Uma Thurman doing ‘The Twist’ in Pulp Fiction, to Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling tapping their way through ‘A Lovely Night’ in La La Land, dancing Hollywood A-listers have made simple steps iconic on the silver screen. Behind the movie magic and clever choreography is a hard-working choreographer, navigating the challenges unique to actors with varying levels of skills in dance. Leading industry choreographers Chloé Arnold, Marguerite Derricks and Mandy Moore [say] creating choreography for celebrities takes a different set of skills — and amount of time — than working with elite professional dancers.

“ ‘With dancers, you know they can do anything you come up with,’ says choreographer and tap dancer Chloé Arnold, who created the moves for Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer for the 2022 holiday film Spirited. ‘Whereas with celebrities, you have to first build trust, then take the time to discover how their body naturally moves.’ Uncovering strengths is the first step: For example, certain actors­ might have an innate musicality. Once a choreographer is aware of that, they can highlight that strength while avoiding steps that magnify their weaknesses.

“Marguerite Derricks, who choreographed for the Amazon Prime series ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ from 2016 to 2022, believes that adaptability is essential when choreographing for A-listers. ‘Once I have the script, I go into a studio with an assistant and put together movement ideas,’ she says. ‘Then I take those ideas to the actors, but I’m very ready to change up the moves. Right when I walk in, I tell them I have hundreds of ideas in my pocket, so if we try something that looks great and feels good we continue. If not, I will remove it and start playing with new ideas.’

“Derricks, whose movement has been featured in more than 50 films and 40 television shows, cultivates an open dialogue with performers and a low-stress environment in the studio. ‘It’s not about pushing a style or an idea on actors, but going in as their confidant and cheerleader, and making them feel comfortable,’ she says. ‘When they see my patience, they are more patient with themselves.’

“When La La Land choreographer Mandy Moore works with celebrities, she makes sure that she will have ample time to teach them to dance. ‘On set, things can change and shift, and if the actor understands the basics of movement and weight changes, as well as the choreography, they will be able to make changes without melting down.’ She, too, enters the rehearsal space with an open mind. ‘I am someone who preps everything to a T, knowing it could all change the first second I get into rehearsal,’ she says. …

“Having an A-lister on a project will bring attention to the work, but for these three choreographers, the benefits extend far beyond that. ‘What actors bring to the choreography is so rich — they totally embody the character,’ Derricks says. ‘I get so excited because I know that in some ways, they will take my movement deeper than even dancers can.’ That’s why Derricks encourages dancers to take acting classes. ‘You can kick and spin and pas de bourrée, but the magic is how you put it all together in a story. Acting brings greater depth to your dancing.’

“The Spirited celebrities shared their genuine enthusiasm for tap with their massive fan base—as well as their appreciation for the dancers on set. … ‘Everyone was so kind, and there were no big egos,’ [Arnold] says. ‘If one of the actors grasped something and the other didn’t, they would respond with comedy. If the steps didn’t work out and needed to be changed, they were trusting. They could have challenged me or pushed back, but there were no excuses.’ …

“ ‘So much of choreography is reading the room,’ Derricks says. ‘When working with actors for the first time, I want them to know that I am here for them. I’m not here to win an award. I will do whatever I can to help make them comfortable and confident for the scene.’

“Building that confidence is no easy task. Moore says she’s found many actors have been told they’re not good dancers, leading to insecurities. ‘It’s time-consuming, but you need to help them believe in themselves,’ she says. ‘It’s almost like therapy — you don’t want to feed into their complex. You want them to leave you loving dance.’ One of the ways Moore fosters confidence in the rehearsal studio is by not having mirrors on the walls. ‘I don’t want them to get critical of how they look,’ she says. She also holds off on filming portions of rehearsal until the dancers are ready.

“Navigating difficult personalities is another potential challenge. When casting dancers, choreographers can choose who to work with, but when they are part of a larger work with celebrities, they don’t have that luxury. Arnold does all she can to change the energy in the room. ‘If you are seeing negative things, introduce alternatives,’ she says. ‘Dress for the betterment of the space. Sometimes I will come in wearing a message T-shirt that says something uplifting. Be kind, lead by example and make sure the rest of the cast feel supported by you.’ ”

More at Dance, here. No firewall. Nice pictures from movies.

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An Urban Farm Gives Back

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 17, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: What Cheer Flower Farm.

Today’s story shows, among other things, that if you pick a really good name, you’re halfway to your goal. Who wouldn’t be drawn to a charity with a name like What Cheer Flower Farm?

And wait till you hear what it does! Frank Carini’s ecoRI News story was originally reported in 2018.

“The place was a complete mess, but a trio of determined women was going to buy it anyway, as soon as the seller removed about 50 tattered mattresses from the dilapidated building.

“The 2.7-acre property was covered with wind-blown trash. More than a year later, the three women are still picking up broken glass. … They ripped up poison ivy by gloved hand, and brought in a tractor to help tear down the overgrowth. The empty factory with a brick facade, largely vacant since the 1990s, has no running water or electricity, is covered in graffiti, has been the victim of arson, and has been gutted of all scrap metal.

“ ‘The property was neglected for years,’ said Shelby Doggett, who, at 25, is the youngest of the three buyers.

“The women, Doggett, her mother, Marian Purviance, and Anne Holland, bought the derelict property for $525,000, so they could give away flowers.

“What Cheer Flower Farm was incorporated [in October 2017] and it acquired the former site of the Colonial Knife Co., forgotten industrial land in the heart of the city’s Olneyville neighborhood, not far from Route 6, this spring.

“After the sale became final, the first two essential items the women had delivered were a port-a-potty and a truckload of compost.

“This new urban farm, at 46 Atwood St., only began its growing season two months ago. The seeds were planted late in the season because there was plenty of other work to do first. For one, the property was covered in pavement.

“Some 4,000 square feet of parking lot was torn up and transformed into an organic raised-bed ‘field’ of flowers, both perennial and annual. Purviance, the farm’s horticultural director, has years of garden cultivation and management experience.

“ ‘I worked in the fine-gardening business for a long time, and I worked for very high-end clients. A lot of them really didn’t even appreciate what it was to have a garden and how much a flower really means,’ said Purviance, 57, a 30-year resident of Providence.

‘I get so much more satisfaction out of working on this project than I did working for people who take that for granted.’

“The nonprofit flower farm with two full-time farmers — Purviance and Doggett, who as the program director also handles the administrative side of things; Holland is the communications manger — and with support from volunteers, grows organic flowers on a brownfield site.

“They give their product away to ‘people who deserve flowers but don’t have access,’ Purviance said.

“To supply those people who deserve flowers, What Cheer Flower Farm has partnered with Amos House, the Ronald McDonald House of Providence, and Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island. The women deliver bouquets and buckets of cut flowers to these institutions and other partners.

“About 90 percent of the flowers currently being grown at the farm were started from seed by Purviance in her kitchen and in a friend’s basement. The rest of the plants were donated by Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth. …

“Besides brightening people’s lives with free flowers — 1,000 have so far been donated — the nonprofit’s mission also includes reversing urban blight, creating a job training center for Rhode Island residents to help them enter the state’s $2.5 billion ‘green’ economy, and making Providence famous for urban flower farming.

“Chicken manure from Scratch Farm and horse manure from a gentleman farmer in Rehoboth, Mass., have been used to build soil. … The farm rents a meter from Providence Water, which allows it to use a fire hydrant for watering. The water is stored in donated tanks of various sizes.

“Where the dilapidated building now stands, the co-founders envision a barn, classroom space, an office, and space for lease. …

“What Cheer Flower Farm has applied for a brownfield remediation grant with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. An ongoing inventory assessment didn’t find elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The owners have worked with the National Resources Conservation Service and David Foss of Wilcox & Barton Inc., a Vermont-based environmental consulting firm.

“The property is in better toxic shape than the new owners predicted, but there’s still much work to be done. Much of that work will revolve around fundraising. As a 501(c)(3), the organization will rely on grants, donations, volunteers, and kindness. They also plan to host fee-based workshops for hobby gardeners and amateurs.”

From the farm’s website: “Our staff are busy working on growing, rescuing and giving away flowers. You can visit as a volunteer, or as an artist who wants to work outside en plain air or as a group seeking a tour. …

“What Cheer Flower Farm is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing solace, joy and healing to the people of Rhode Island via flowers as well as supporting our local floral economy via job training.

“We grow, rescue and give away 100,000 flowers per year and are on track to expand to giving away 300,000 flowers per year in the next five years. We never sell flowers – all are given away freely via our network of local nonprofits and organizations serving Rhode Islanders including hospitals, senior services, recovery centers, shelters, hospices and food pantries. …

  ” 2022 Achievements

  • “92,000 flowers grown, rescued and given away
  • “$50,000 grant won from United Way/Social Enterprise Greenhouse
  • “Relaunched Flower Festival named ‘The Best Thing to Do in RI’ by The Boston Globe.”

More at ecoRI News, here. No firewall.

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A Tiny Country’s Big Impact

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 16, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Wikimedia.
Devastation on the island nation Vanuatu (near Australia) after Cyclone Pam in March 2015. Vanuatu is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Already this year it was hit by two Category 4 cyclones, blamed on global warming.

Today’s story by Michael Birnbaum at the Washington Post could be subtitled The Mouse That Roared. That’s because a tiny nation vulnerable to climate change is pushing the world’s highest court to take a stand.

“The small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu won a major victory to advance international climate law [in March] after it persuaded the U.N. General Assembly to ask the world’s highest international court to rule on the obligations of countries to address climate change.

“The request for an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice is expected to clarify the legal obligations of countries to address climate change — and to create a path for them to be sued if they fail to do so. The U.N. effort was a significant outcome for Vanuatu, an archipelago nation of 320,000 people that is suffering from climate-change-driven natural disasters. In recent weeks, it was hit by two Category 4 cyclones, the severity of which its leaders blamed on global warming. Thousands of people are still living in shelters.

“The country has used its moral authority and ability to stage action at the United Nations to achieve outsize results on climate issues. The U.N. General Assembly approved the measure by acclamation, with neither the United States nor China standing in the way of the effort despite uncertainty in advance whether they would seek a formal up-or-down vote.

“[The] decision was also a measure of how much global attitudes about the urgency of addressing climate change have shifted in recent years. A similar effort in 2011 by two other island nations, Palau and the Marshall Islands, failed at the United Nations. This time, Vanuatu obtained co-sponsorship from more than 120 countries, including Britain, France, Germany and other industrialized nations with a long history of high emissions.

“ ‘It is a matter of basic survival for us,’ Vanuatu Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu said in an interview.

‘We can’t do anything economically and politically because we don’t have any power. What we can use is our sovereignty as a United Nations member state.’ …

“Having the International Court of Justice weigh in creates a ‘pretty clear pathway to recognizing that states have a duty not only not to violate fundamental human rights, but states have a duty to avoid transboundary harm through activities under their control,’ said Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law, a D.C.-based nonprofit that works to use international law to address ecological issues.

“He compared an advisory ruling to consulting a lawyer while being engaged in behavior that falls in a legal gray zone.

“ ‘It’s like when you send a note to your lawyer, and you get a lawyer’s note back saying what you’re doing is illegal,’ he said. ‘It puts you on notice that you could be held accountable for your actions.’ …

“As Vanuatu gained support for the U.N. action, it was careful to try to build consensus, with its leaders saying they are not suing anyone nor seeking to create new international obligations. Instead, they say, they are seeking to clarify how preexisting international agreements apply to climate change. …

“Neither the United States, which is the world’s largest historical emitter, nor China — which is soon poised to overtake the United States on that count — opposed the measure. The two superpowers have been competing for influence among Pacific island nations as they seek to project power across that ocean, giving the small countries outsize leverage despite their minuscule economies and populations.

“But even as the United States stood aside and allowed the referral to be approved without objection, a U.S. diplomat also said the Biden administration believes diplomacy is a better way to achieve action on climate issues than inside a courtroom.

” ‘Launching a judicial process, especially given the broad scope of the questions, will likely accentuate disagreements and not be conducive to advancing our ongoing diplomatic and other processes. In light of these concerns, the United States disagrees that this initiative is the best approach for achieving our shared goals,’ diplomat Nicholas Hill told the General Assembly after the measure was approved, speaking on behalf of the State Department.

“Vanuatu’s policymakers said they had tried to craft their work in a way that would win broad acceptance.

“ ‘We have deliberately tried to make this as noncontentious as possible,’ Regenvanu said. ‘Once we get the question before the court, then the process of submissions begins, and there might be a slight change of tactic there. Because obviously we want the highest level ambition in that opinion.’

“The effort began four years ago in a classroom at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Law students there decided that an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice could be an effective tool to advance climate justice. They worked to convince their governments to follow suit.

“Vanuatu has also promoted a global fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty, advocating a total phaseout of oil, coal and gas as quickly as possible. And it has been a leader on international efforts to create a system to compensate the worst-hit countries for ‘loss and damage’ from climate change.”

More at the Post, here.

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Artists Decide Whether to Sign

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: Luana Rigolli/T293 Gallery).
Art by Dylan Rose Rheingold, “Hot Skates” (2022), oil, acrylic, paint pen on canvas. Although growing numbers of artists question the value of signing their works, Rheingold is one who has chosen to sign.

When my mother died, there were decisions to be made about several works by our neighbor, the Abstract Expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart. For most of his career he rebelled against the custom of signing work. But toward the end of his life, he came around to the idea that in the art market, his family and friends needed to have his signature. He offered to sign our paintings. We sold some and kept some. The photographs and brass jewelry were never signed.

Anoushka Bhalla wrote recently at Hyperallergic that the issue of signing keeps coming back in the art world.

“It all began during the early Renaissance when a young Raphael Santi forwent the long-held tradition of co-operative art making under guild systems to autograph his first painting, ‘The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine.’

“While Raphael was modest in breaking long-established customs, obscuring his signature within decorations behind a Virgin Mary figure, his male successors centuries down the line would not remain as bashful. The signatures of Picasso and Keith Haring are far more familiar than that of, say, Helen Frankenthaler. …

“Signed artworks by male artists fetch astounding prices in the secondary market as compared to their female counterparts. A recent study states that ‘For every £1 a male artist earns for his work, a woman earns a mere 10p.’ The same study also states that ‘while the value of a work by a man rises if he has signed it, the value of a work by a woman falls if she has signed it, as if it has somehow been tainted by her gender.’ Female artists have long been conscious of this gender disparity, with some feeling paralyzed against the market and choosing to forgo their signatures to make their works more ‘collectible.’ Are these artists signing away their autonomy too?

“I spoke to Baseera Khan about these troubling statistics. A femme artist of color, they were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. ‘No, I don’t sign my works. I think it’s an old tradition,’ they declare. ‘I don’t think I’m valued because of my gender, because I’m a femme artist, quite not as much as the male artists — and that’s a fight.’ …

“Artists Julie Torres and Ellen Letcher, who operate LABspace, an artist-run gallery in Hillsdale, New York, often find themselves in awkward positions, having to ward off collectors who demand signatures from their artists and sometimes even return works for them to be signed. But for others, like Lucia Hierro, whose work was recently acquired by the Guggenheim Museum, and who often does not sign her pieces, says she will stand her ground. There is a finality to signatures, she says, which she dislikes.

“[Although Xayvier Haughton] makes art that is difficult to collect, he feels defenseless in the face of powerful collectors who make sure to somehow obtain his signature before acquisition. He acknowledges this as a conscious decision on his part. Installations are notoriously difficult to collect, and that in itself is an anti-market statement. … While Haughton wants to adhere to his principles, he doesn’t want to be blacklisted in the art world — which he feels is the fate of artists who defy the desires of collectors. In this fickle art-world bubble, he’s attempting to hold onto his autonomy by forgoing his signature.

“But some disagree with this sentiment. Bhasha Chakrabarti, also an emerging artist, who works in painting, sculptures and installations, is a skeptic. ‘I find the idea of making installation with the motivation of evading the market to be disingenuous…. If you make art and are functioning within the gallery system, you’re not evading the art world,’ even though, she adds, she feels suspicious of the art world’s deep stake in capitalism. When I mention the Eurocentric history of asserting ownership via signatures on artwork, she counters, citing Sufi mystic poets who claimed authorship after each recital. …

“Artist Chiffon Thomas approaches the dilemma more philosophically. Thomas, whose solo show Staircase to the Rose Window was on view at PPOW Gallery in Tribeca last year. … Over time, he explains, he stopped signing his works and acquired an existential approach to art-making. He realized he wanted to capture a sense of universality in his art, to the extent that he grew uncomfortable using his childhood, his family, or any personal signifiers. …

“But perhaps the most compelling response comes from a young artist, Dylan Rose Rheingold. As more painters shy away from signing their works on the front of their canvases, Rheingold realizes this is an empowering act as a woman. Nevertheless, she will occasionally sign as ‘Dylan,’ a traditional male name, although she also uses the more feminine ‘Dylan Rose,’ and lately she is using her full name, Dylan Rose Rheingold, boldly asserting ownership over her art.

“Her resolve strengthens when she explains passionately a recent encounter she had with a ‘big collector who owns a big gallery in New York. … When I met him, he told me that I should drop my middle name because my work would be a lot more valuable. People would not assume I’m a woman.’ She countered with ‘I’m happy to take my chances.’ ”

More at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall but memberships are encouraged.

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Tenants ‘Evict’ Landlord

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 14, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia (United Renters For Justice) via NextCity.
A collective of Minneapolis renters, now known as the Corcoran Five, were key to winning a landmark $18.5 million class-action settlement against their landlord. Not long after, in 2020, they signed a purchase agreement for the five buildings in question and began turning them into a tenant-run co-op.

Do the little guys ever win? They do if they organize. As Evicted author Matthew Desmond reminded readers at the New York Times, ” ‘The weapons of the weak are always weak weapons,’ the French historian Lucien Bianco once wrote. It’s true. Paper flowers, homemade noisemakers: it’s not much. … But you cannot deny that that was, and has always been, a true power in American life.” 

In his 2020 article, Desmond dug into one particular organizing success, beginning his story with a Minneapolis City Council meeting that took place in May of that year.

“Vanessa del Campo Chacón rose to speak. An immigrant from Veracruz, Mexico, who ran an in-home day care from her small apartment, Chacón spoke in Spanish, and a bearded young man knelt by her side and translated. This was Roberto de la Riva, co-director of Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia (United Renters for Justice), a tenants’ rights organization that also goes by the abbreviation IX. ‘I’m hours or days from being evicted, and I don’t think the city has deemed this pertinent enough to be involved and to take responsibility,’ Chacón said. ‘We want dignified homes,’ she continued. ‘I’m asking for my daughter and for all the families that are here.’ 

“As she spoke, two other tenants approached the dais and, standing behind the council members, unfurled a huge yellow banner that read, ‘Don’t Evict Vanessa.’

“ ‘I’m sorry,’ the council president, Lisa Bender, interjected. ‘We can’t allow people to come back behind the dais.’ … She was sympathetic to the tenants, but she also had a meeting to run. Before Bender could finish, the room erupted. …

“After a bailiff escorted the tenants off the dais, Vanessa’s neighbor, Chloé Jackson, approached the lectern, pressing her hands together as if in prayer. A Black woman with plastic-rimmed glasses, Jackson was raising her teenage son, Trayvon, on the $15.69-an-hour wage she earned at the airport iStore. ‘We don’t know exactly how long any of us have,’ Jackson said. … ‘You guys get to go home tonight, sleep in the comfort of your beds,’ she said. ‘We have to wonder about this every single night.’

“This was not the first time Jackson and IX organizers had confronted the City Council. For years, Jackson, Chacón and other residents of five buildings in the city’s Corcoran neighborhood had been involved in a prolonged battle against their landlord, Stephen Frenz, and his business partner, Spiros Zorbalas. The tenants had mobilized for better conditions, resisted evictions and participated in a rent strike. They had banded together and pushed the City Council to revoke Frenz’s rental license. It eventually did, stripping his ability to collect rent. But Frenz still owned the apartments where Jackson and Chacón lived. He wanted everybody out so he could renovate and sell to the highest bidder. The tenants had another idea: They wanted Frenz to sell to them.

“Today, in the pandemic economy, millions of renters are at risk of eviction. Even the expanded provisions supplied by the CARES Act — the $600-a-week supplements to states’ stingy unemployment insurance — weren’t doing enough to shield many renting families from homelessness. … Watching this looming eviction crisis take shape, I’ve often thought of those Minneapolis tenants, whom I followed over the last year and a half. I went to report on them — the security guards, store clerks and night-shift custodians — because I wanted to see what happened when a group of tenants organized against a pair of landlords who owned hundreds of apartments generating, as of 2016, a net operating income of approximately $300,000 a month (or $3.6 million annually). Over the course of my reporting, I saw the tenants reimagine — and then reinvent — what stable, affordable housing could look like in their community. I saw them fight,” wrote Desmond in the Times, “and I saw them win.”

The lengthy article goes on to describe key players. Jackson, for example, was not always an activist. Far from it. Desmond explains how it happened gradually.

“Near the end of 2017, Roberto de la Riva knocked on Chloé Jackson’s door on 22nd Avenue South. Jackson opened the door, sighed and asked, ‘Why do you people keep knocking?’

“Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Jackson moved to Minneapolis in 2013, after the Mall of America hired her in its housekeeping department. She was 28 and had an 8-year-old son. Three years earlier, she became the legal guardian of three teenagers, after their mother, Jackson’s aunt, died. She and her boyfriend kept food on the table — she worked at McDonald’s; he was a mechanic — until all three of her cousins were out of the house. By that time, she needed a break and figured a new city might do the trick.

“In Minneapolis, she found a $625-a-month, one-bedroom apartment in the Corcoran neighborhood, within walking distance of the Lake Street light-rail stop. Giving her son the bedroom, Jackson slept in the living room by a pinkish-orange salt lamp and an 8-by-10-inch photograph of her mother. Jackson took a series of jobs, finally landing at the airport iStore, where she was working full time when de la Riva knocked on her door. As its assistant manager, Jackson woke up at 2:30 each morning; got breakfast ready for her son; fed her cat, Kitty; and hopped on the light rail to the airport, arriving at 3:40 a.m. to open the store.

“When Jackson first moved in, she found her landlord, Stephen Frenz, to be fairly responsive. But seeing the condition of the units inhabited by her neighbors, many of them undocumented immigrants, changed her perspective. Jackson often pulled out a bucket or two to catch the leaks. But to sit at a neighbor’s table for coffee, she often had to step over some half-dozen buckets. Many units had roaches and mice, filthy carpets. (Frenz told me that Jackson’s leak and those of other tenants were mended and that tenants’ lack of cleanliness caused the pest infestations.) ‘I felt so bad,’ Jackson remembered. ‘These are people who didn’t know English, and I felt like this man was taking advantage of them.’ …

“Jackson began warming to the idea of buying the properties. She had long tried to avoid this path, hoping to live a quiet life. But haltingly at first, then all at once, Jackson was becoming, as they say in the movement, ‘politicized.’ “

I can’t cover the whole Times article here, but I recommend anything Matthew Desmond writes. I do want to share this part this part of the story for Mother’s Day: “On May 18, Jackson was sitting in her apartment, on a Zoom call with other IX organizers. In the middle of their meeting, several organizers received a simple text from Eddie Landenberger of Land Bank Twin Cities. It read: ‘We closed.’ Landenberger’s text let everyone know that they had finally done it. They had bought the Corcoran Five.

“The tenants yelled and whooped. …

“ ‘Why’s everyone screaming?’ Jackson’s son, Trayvon, asked, coming out of his bedroom. He was 16 now, handsome and half a foot taller than Jackson.

“ ‘Son, come here,’ she said. ‘We closed on the buildings.’

“ ‘Oh, Mom,’ he said, reaching out in embrace. ‘I’m so proud of you.’ ”

The Times article is here. For a version of the story without a firewall, see reporter Cinnamon Janzer at NextCity, here.

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Photos to Welcome Spring

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 13, 2023| 16 Comments »

Lady Slippers in the wild will soon turn pink.

A real New England spring is tender, touching. The seasonal changes are not always dramatic or photogenic. I would have liked to share with you, for example, the carpets of tiny, blue forget-me-nots I saw all along the edge of a field yesterday, but my phone camera is not sensitive enough. In a photo, they would look like an undifferentiated smear of white.

Still, there is plenty to show, and I hope it’s all welcome, especially to those in the South who are already wilting in the heat of summer.

I found the Lady Slippers along a woodland trail. They will soon turn pink.

I liked the way the euonymus below spoke of new and old growing along together.

Wish I could share how wonderful those lilacs smell — or the fragrance everywhere of little lilies-of the-valley.

The quirky fairy bridge on the campus of Butler Hospital in Providence reminded me of similar ones in New York’s Central Park that filled me with delight during that sad year I was visiting my ailing sister.

In the next photo, I wanted to capture how tired that old wheel looked in the energetic sunshine.

I liked how the stone wall nurtures its floral decorations.

Erik finished the tree house — a triumph of his and a small child’s imagination and will.

After the crabapple blossoms come a couple of the signs I can never resist, including one honoring a local Korean War hero, featured in the recent film Devotion.

The talented costume designers for the decennial production of Little Women honored a local author with dolls featuring the main characters in her book. A lucky theatergoer with the right ticket number got the dolls after the show.

A little crafter is oblivious to all on a sunny spring day.

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That Old Singer Machine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 12, 2023| 10 Comments »

Singer sewing machine just like the one I sold to woman in Oklahoma years ago.

A nice thing happened to me recently. I got a phone call out of the blue from a woman in Oklahoma who had bought my old sewing machine on eBay years ago and kept my contact information. A real surprise.

She responded to my recorded message as if she were talking to me in person. “Yes, Ma’am. This is Margie M—. I had bought a sewing machine around 2014, I’m not sure. But anyway I was just wondering about it. I love the machine and wish I’d a called sooner. [She give her number.] Thank you and have a blessed day.”

I called her back. She was utterly charming. She said she’d wondered if the seller of the machine was even still alive, and she wished she’d called sooner. She’d had a number of sewing machines, but mine was the best. She said either I took very good care of it or I didn’t use it much. (I didn’t use it much.)

We talked a little about what was going on in her life, about ailing family members and how she was caring for them. At the end she wished me a blessed day again.

I think the experience of chatting with someone like Margie, a stranger with a very different life in a very different part of America, made it a blessed day, all right.

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500 Years Under the Sea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 11, 2023| 13 Comments »

Photo: Brett Seymour.
A trove of spices was found in the stern of the ship by Brendan Foley and a team of archaeologists. It had been there for centuries.

For those of us who hope that one day the lost island of Atlantis will be found, any story about underwater discoveries of ancient artifacts is thrilling.

Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing writes at Atlas Obscura, “Built 1485, the Danish warship Gribshunden served as the flagship and mobile seat of government for King Hans of Denmark and Norway. In the summer of 1495, Hans set sail for Kalmar, Sweden, where he was set to negotiate with Swedish leader Sten Sture the Elder. The goal of the mission was to convince Sten Sture and the Swedish council to give up their sovereignty and rejoin the Kalmar Union, which had unified much of Scandinavia under a single ruler (and which Sweden had left a few decades before, despite the union being named for a Swedish town).

“The ship itself had a role to play: to show Hans’s authority to the Swedish council. It was also laden with goods — from gunpowder weapons to artwork to delicacies — to demonstrate his power.

“However, while anchored in the Baltic Sea near the port of Ronneby, Sweden, Gribshunden mysteriously caught fire. Though the king wasn’t on board at the time, many crewmen were, in addition to all those pricey goods. Although the exact number of deaths is unknown, many of the crew of 150 were on board when the ship sank to the bottom of the Baltic with its precious cargo. …

“In the 1970s, a local diving club came across a mysterious wooden wreck there, in 33 feet of water. It wasn’t until 2001 that the first archaeological excavations of the ship began, after one of the divers told local archaeologists about what they had found. It was another decade before the remains were identified as those of Gribshunden. All through the excavation of the wreck, remarkably preserved by the cold waters of the Baltic, amazing and sometimes odd artifacts have emerged and attracted media attention. In 2015, there was a nearly perfectly preserved wooden ‘sea monster’ figurehead. In 2019, archaeologists discovered a well-preserved rare Atlantic sturgeon. Further excavations in 2021 revealed something even more remarkable: a treasure trove of spices, plant material, fruits, nuts, and cereals, that somehow survived underwater for more than 500 years.

“In a study published in the journal PLoS ONE, Brendan Foley and Mikael Larsson, archaeologists at Lund University in Sweden, examined the finds for new insights into how nobility lived and ate during the Middle Ages, and shed light on how these organic materials survived so long underwater.

“Foley and a team had been excavating the stern when they made the finds. ‘We think, but we’re not sure, that the back part of the ship is probably where the highest ranking individuals were situated,’ says Foley. They sifted through the sand and silt and revealed almond shells and peppercorns. They recovered thin strands of saffron by hand. ‘We took four samples of botanical assemblage that included both local and exotic spices, fruits, and vegetables,’ says Larsson, including black mustard, dill, clove, ginger, cucumber, grape, and berries such as blackberry and raspberry. ‘The botanical remains that really stand out are the exotic spices,’ he says. Clove, ginger, and saffron had never been found before in the medieval Baltic.

Larsson says that their work is the first anywhere in the world to find saffron in such a setting. …

“Though the geographical origins of saffron are not completely understood, it is thought to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean, and been grown in Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean basin. Ginger is believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, and cloves are native to Indonesia. Black pepper comes from South India. Despite this time being known as the ‘Dark Ages’ in Europe, the finds show that Scandinavia wasn’t just a backwater of the world economy. …

“[One] question focuses on how these delicate organic remains were able to survive in the Baltic. ‘It’s a mystery,’ says Foley. ‘We don’t know, we didn’t find any containers.’ When they found the saffron, it was just in a lump in the sediment. ‘No glass jar around it, no ceramic jar, no wooden box, no silver box,’ he says. It may have been stored in some sort of fine textile bag that disintegrated over the years—but somehow the spice remained.

“ ‘The Baltic Sea is really weird,’ Foley says. For one, it has the lowest salinity found in the global oceans. This, combined with low temperatures and low dissolved oxygen to feed microbes, have given the Baltic a reputation for remarkable preservation of archaeological material, specifically wooden shipwrecks.”

More at Atlas Obscura, here. No firewall.

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The Painting That Wasn’t a Fake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 10, 2023| 11 Comments »

Photo: Daguerre Val de Loire via the Guardian.
The family thought their painting was a fake, but it turned out to be an authentic work by Pieter Bruegel the Younger, “L’Avocat du village” (“The Village Lawyer”). It sold at auction for $850,000.

It can sometimes happen in families as younger generations come along, new people marry into the family — and those who know the history of a painting on the wall die off — that the importance of a work becomes something no one takes seriously.

I remember the husband of a babysitter John had when he was three scoffing about a painting his wife said was a Turner. I believed the babysitter was better informed. Today I wonder where that painting is.

Jonathan Edwards reports at the Washington Post about a similar situation.

“Malo de Lussac entered the tiny, dimly lit TV room in October, expecting the unremarkable as he assessed the value of the art and artifacts in his new client’s home in northern France. Then, a painting caked in dust and almost entirely hidden by a door caught the auctioneer’s eye.

“Pay it no mind, his client told de Lussac. Yes, the family had long called it ‘The Bruegel,’ but it was an affectionate dig at a painting that was clearly a fake.

“Turns out, the family joke was a hidden masterpiece, a genuine work of Pieter Bruegel the Younger, a 17th-century Flemish artist. Painted more than 400 years ago, ‘L’Avocat du village’ — or ‘The Village Lawyer’ — sold [in March] at auction in Paris for the equivalent of about $850,000 — the result of a discovery that de Lussac described as one of the most thrilling of his career.

“ ‘I was very, very surprised,’ de Lussac said.

“His coup started out as a workaday assignment: Travel from Paris to a client’s home in northern France to estimate how much their artwork and artifacts would sell for at auction. Because of the home’s size, he’d blocked out the entire day to accomplish the job.

“For the first hour, everything went as expected. After a half-hour of chatting and building a rapport with the owner over coffee, they started touring the house by surveying the living room. They then moved to the kitchen. Everything fell within de Lussac’s expectations: furniture, china, some ‘interesting’ but relatively unimportant paintings.

“They moved on to a TV room, where his client directed his attention to some 19th-century paintings they thought would be of the most interest. … Then de Lussac spotted part of a painting covered in dust and mostly obscured by a door. He shut it to get a look at the entire work. The brushstrokes, the colors, the canvas material: It all rang true with de Lussac’s knowledge of Bruegel the Younger. Born in Brussels around 1564, Bruegel was the eldest son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of the most prominent artists of the Flemish Renaissance in Flanders, a Dutch-speaking region of what is now Belgium. …

“ ‘My heart was beating so hard,’ de Lussac said.

“The owners broke the bad news: The painting had long been regarded as a knockoff by the family. Their forebears had purchased it in the late 1800s, and it spent the next century bouncing to different houses as younger generations inherited the work. …

“But acting on his hunch, de Lussac pressed the current owner. Everything he observed jibed with what he knew of Bruegel the Younger, who had painted several works depicting the same scene of a Spanish official collecting taxes from Flemish peasants.

“The owners were skeptical but willing to let de Lussac send the painting to a Bruegel expert in Germany. In December, they got word: It was genuine.

“[DeLussac] said that he believes the original buyer purchased it as a genuine Bruegel, and that knowledge of its authenticity was lost to time.”

More at the Post, here. At the Guardian, there is an earlier version of the story without a firewall, here.

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