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James Baldwin in Turkey

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 31, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Sedat Pakay, Hudson Film Works II.
James Baldwin in Istanbul in 1966.

James Baldwin didn’t kid himself about life in America for a gay Black man in the 1960s. He traveled widely and lived for long stretches in countries he found more hospitable. (A 2016 post, here, addresses an effort to preserve a house he bought on the Côte d’Azur.)

I knew about France but not Turkey, which Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi writes about in the Yale Review.

At the beginning of the “11-minute black and white documentary, James Baldwin: From Another Place, directed by Sedat Pakay and filmed in Istanbul in May 1970, … he turns his back to the cam­era and opens the curtains. A sharp Mediterranean light floods in. Baldwin scratches the small of his back, and we hear him say in voiceover: ‘I suppose that many people do blame me for being out of the States as often as I am, but one can’t afford to worry about that because one does, you know, you do what you have to do the way you have to do it. And as someone who is outside of the States you realize that it’s impossible to get out, the American powers are everywhere.’

“The camera pans over the glittering Bosphorus Strait as American ships glide silently through the passage connecting Asia and Europe.

“Pakay’s film has long been almost impossible to see in the United States, aside from a short clip on YouTube. But in February, it began streaming on the Criterion Channel, and its reappearance is a useful occasion to re-examine one of the most important, and yet relatively unknown, aspects of Baldwin’s career: his time in Turkey.

“At the time Pakay made his film, Baldwin had been living in Istanbul intermittently for almost a decade. He first arrived there in 1961, broke, emotionally spent, and struggling to complete his third novel, Another Country. The Turkish actor Engin Cezzar, who had met Baldwin in New York in 1957 when he was cast as Giovanni in the Actors Studio adaptation of Giovanni’s Room (Baldwin’s sec­ond novel), had given him an open invitation to visit, and follow­ing a demoralizing trip to Israel, Baldwin showed up on Cezzar’s doorstep.

“He quickly made himself at home, and over the next ten years lived irregularly in Istanbul, Erdek, and Bodrum, socializing with the Turkish intelligentsia and a small circle of Black artists and activists who were living in Turkey or passing through.

“Istanbul offered Baldwin a refuge during the tumultuous decade of the 1960s. In a 1970 conversation with Ida Lewis for Essence mag­azine, Baldwin said of his decision to move to the city, ‘It was very useful for me to go to a place like Istanbul at that point in my life, because it was so far out of the way from what I called home and the pressures.’ …

“Baldwin had first left the United States, for Paris, in 1948, and had lived out of the United States for years prior to his arrival in Istanbul. But the clarity and safety afforded by his time there allowed him to more sharply articulate America’s assaultive realities and to give expression to the connections between his personal wounds and the scars of racialized political history. …

“[His] layered inner landscape mir­ror the city’s multifaceted character, with its refusal of neat distinc­tions between tradition and modernity, East and West, Christianity and Islam.

“Istanbul was a liminal space of healing for Baldwin, a writing haven that he saw as having saved his life. As [Magdalena Zaborowska, author of James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade] notes, this may explain why the Baldwin we see in Pakay’s documentary is far more relaxed and at ease than the Baldwin we are accustomed to seeing in American media from that era.

“And yet, Baldwin’s decade in Turkey remains an enigma and a lacuna in our collective imagi­nation. Zaborowska’s is the only book-length treatment of Baldwin’s time there, and even people familiar with Baldwin’s writing are often unaware he ever lived in Istanbul. … What does the warm, vul­nerable, and playful Baldwin captured on film by Pakay tell us about his need to leave America time and again in search of safety?

“The respite Turkey offered Baldwin, combined with Istanbul’s vibrancy and the warmth with which he was received, sparked one of the most prolific periods of his artistic life. In 1961, when he first arrived, he was haggard and exhausted. 

“His trip to Israel had deep­ened his disillusionment with Christianity, and he was still mourn­ing Eugene Worth, a Black socialist and dear friend, who, in 1946, had killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. In addition, Baldwin had been trying without success to complete Another Country, his courageous and groundbreaking exploration of bisexuality and interracial love.

“Worth’s death, which Baldwin memorializes in Another Country, had devastated Baldwin for years, and he had tried and failed again and again to finish the novel until he was delivered from the strain of severe writer’s block in Istanbul. Baldwin wrote the book’s final sentence while at a party at Cezzar’s house in what he described as ‘the city which the people from heaven had made their home.’ …

“The years Baldwin spent off and on in Turkey coincided with one of the country’s most vibrant and expansive periods. The 1950s in Turkey had been a period of economic decline, ruthless author­itarianism, and iron-fisted censorship, a confluence of negative forces that gave rise to mass mobilization and to student-led pop­ular protests. …

“By 1965, free elections had been restored, and liberal constitutional reform had significantly expanded freedom of speech. The nation’s position as a strategic U.S. ally had been salvaged, but its cultural flowering continued, along with anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist move­ments similar to those that were emerging elsewhere around the world. Baldwin’s work and lived experience spoke directly to the political and aesthetic debates of the time. In Turkey, in a context of cultural ferment, Baldwin was revered as a major American and transnational writer, rather than being put in a position of having to prove his legitimacy over and over.

“Still, even in Turkey, Baldwin could not fully escape America. During the Cold War, relations between the United States and Turkey were founded on military collaboration and cooperation; the United States sent ships to Turkish waters to counter the threat of Soviet expansion, making Turkey a source of anti-Soviet mil­itary aid. As Baldwin said to Sedat Pakay, ‘American powers are everywhere.’ His feelings fluctuated between entrapment, the sense that no matter how far he traveled from the violence in the United States he could not, existentially speaking, ‘get out,’ and the feelings of transcendence and revival that Cezzar’s warm hos­pitality and Turkey itself afforded him.”

More at the Yale Review, here. No firewall.

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A Hmong Hearing Test

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 30, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Anthony Camerlo/Unsplash.
Can you get a hearing test if the only language you know is rare?

Where we live now, it’s more common than not for people to need hearing aids. Whether those people actually wear their hearing aids is another issue, but folks around them seem tolerant of having to repeat — or shout.

One thing I never thought about until I read today’s article is the fact that getting an audiology test can be a problem if you speak an uncommon language.

Lina Tran reports at WUWM, “About four years ago, Maichou Lor was living in New York completing a postdoctoral fellowship, when family members back home in Wisconsin kept telling her that her dad’s hearing was getting worse.

“ ‘He wasn’t responding to conversations even though he had a hearing aid,’ said Lor, now an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ‘I brought him in to see his doctor through the ENT clinic here at UW-Health.’

“Lor and her father are Hmong; she joined him at the appointment as an interpreter, since he doesn’t speak English. At the clinic, his physician told Lor there was a limit to what he could offer him.

“ ‘I told her that there was a limitation in the test,’ said Burke Richmond, an assistant professor in the ear, nose, and throat division [at] the University of Wisconsin-Madison. …

“Part of the evaluation is a word recognition test, which assesses when speech is loud enough for someone to understand. It helps doctors identify the severity and type of hearing loss and come up with a treatment plan, such as whether hearing aids will work or if a cochlear implant is viable.

“During the test, patients listen to a recording of words, with instructions to repeat the words as they hear them. But, for the most part, the test is only available in the most common languages. … Few clinics are equipped to treat Hmong-speaking patients. …

“After Lor and Richmond met, they undertook a years-long, interdisciplinary collaboration that resulted in the first Hmong hearing test of its kind.

“Hearing evaluations typically involve a couple different tests. In one of them, patients listen to beeps and tones and press a button when they hear it. ‘That’s easy enough to explain to someone who speaks a different language,’ said Jennifer Ploch, a clinical audiologist involved with the project, then at UW-Madison. …

“When Lor and her father came through his office, Richmond knew about Lor’s research on health disparities. He asked if she wanted to make a Hmong word test with him. …

“The English test is designed to use everyday words like ‘bat’ and ‘kick’ that anyone would understand. At the same time, it shouldn’t be possible for test-takers to predict or guess what the words are without actually hearing them. Historically, one of the ways audiologists have accomplished that is by writing the word list so that it reflects the phonetic make-up of the language.

“ ‘If the language has a bunch of S’s, you want to have a bunch of S’s in the words,’ explained Lynsey Wolter, an associate linguistics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, who led the writing of the Hmong word list. ‘But not too many because then someone will just guess.’

“But no one had studied how frequent different sounds are in Hmong.

“ ‘And there are a lot,’ Wolter said. ‘There are about twice as many consonant sounds in Hmong as in English. Hmong is also a tonal language. The intonation of the word — whether the tone is higher or lower, going up or going down — can change the meaning.’ …

“Wolter said it was critical to work with native Hmong speakers, so she quickly brought two of her students onboard. … Kao Lee Lor, then a senior, was one of the student collaborators. She always loved languages and grew up hearing many of them at home, reflecting the places her parents had lived before immigrating to Wausau, Wisconsin. They were born in Laos and grew up in a Thai refugee camp. They enjoyed television shows, films, and music in Thai, Hmong, and Hindi. …

“To pick words for the list, the students dug through Hmong texts, entering all the words into a massive spreadsheet.

“ ‘We compiled a bunch of different Hmong folklore and folktales, Hmong kids’ books, anything we could find,’ Lor said. Some of the tales were familiar to her and her collaborator, oral traditions that had been passed down from their grandparents and parents. But there was little time to appreciate the stories in a new light; their focus was gathering as many words as they could.

“ ‘Once we were able to extract these words from these texts, we were able to break these words up into [their] parts, and then count the frequency of how much these consonants, sounds, vowels, and tones occurred,’ Lor said. …

“With numbers on how frequent different sounds are in the language, the linguistics team picked words to meet those targets. They wrote four lists of 50 words each, and sent it back to the UW-Madison researchers.

“Word lists in hand, the researchers asked the Hmong community to nominate clear, fluent speakers. Then, to validate the list, they tested the Hmong test against the English version on a group of bilingual speakers. They published their results in December.”

More at Milwaukee’s WUWM, here. No firewall. And for more on Hmong people in America, read the lovely memoir The Late Homecomer.

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Sweden’s Sustainable Fashion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 29, 2023| 16 Comments »

Photo: Dominique Soguel.
An employee stands in the industrial-scale plant of textile-to-textile recycling company Renewcell in Sundsvall, Sweden, Feb. 7, 2023.

After my youngest granddaughter toured a recycling facility in Rhode Island, she told me that one thing the state recycles is textiles. But in Massachusetts, where a new law forbids putting textiles in landfills, there are few towns that offer services for recycling worn-out clothes. At least there are plenty of outlets for reusable clothes.

In Sweden, some folks are trying to make all clothes — and the materials that go into them — reusable. That’s according to today’s article from the Christian Science Monitor.

Dominique Soguel writes, “Discarded, sorted clothes arrive by ship on the shores of Sundsvall, in the Gulf of Bothnia inlet of the Baltic Sea. But they aren’t bound for a landfill.

“Rather, they are destined for the city’s Renewcell plant, where they will be dissolved and processed into a new substance: Circulose. This material looks like white cardboard, feels like watercolor paper, and – most importantly – can be spun into yarns for textile manufacturers. …

“Renewcell’s patented technology, now available commercially, and successful launch of the world’s first industrial-scale textile recycling plant in Sweden offer a beacon of hope to brands and consumers who care about environmental sustainability.

“ ‘From an environmental perspective, it means that every year, instead of huge swaths of forest being cut down, millions of old jeans and T-shirts are being used rather than them degrading into methane in landfill,’ says Nicole Rycroft, director of the environmental nonprofit Canopy.

“The fashion industry relies primarily on three fibers – polyester, cotton, and viscose rayon – each of which is problematic for the environment.

“Polyester, made from plastic, takes hundreds of years to break down. … Soft-to-touch cotton is grown on vast, water-intensive monoculture farms using large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides. The Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-largest lake, dried up almost completely, drained by cotton fields in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. …

“Viscose rayon is made from tree wood, which sometimes comes from ancient forests. Ms. Rycroft points to the 300 million trees cut down yearly to make viscose rayon, among other textiles. That consumption is slated to double within the next decade.

“On top of all this, much of what the fashion industry produces with these materials ends up as waste. Global production of textile fibers and all apparel creates 110 million metric tons of waste. On average, Europeans produce 33 pounds per year per capita, and Americans about 70 pounds per year.

“Solutions for controlling fashion’s consumption rate range from reducing overproduction and overconsumption to making longer-lasting clothes and embedding circularity into product design. But experts consider fiber-to-fiber recycling – converting textile waste into new fibers that can be used to make clothes or other textile goods – as one of the most sustainable and scalable levers available. …

“The Nordics stand out in Europe for their efforts to reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the planet. Copenhagen Fashion Week imposes sustainability requirements on brands before they hit the runway. Multiple Nordic brands offer recycling options and sell used clothes on their shelves at reduced prices.

“Sweden boasts an impressive secondhand clothes market scene; the world’s first recycling mall, Retuna; and innovative companies like Nudie. Nudie offers customers free repairs on their jeans and a 20% discount on new ones if they trade in old ones. It’s a much-loved service.

“ ‘I really like clothes, but I don’t think it’s necessary for me to buy something new to get the kind of clothes that I like to wear,’ says Tomas Persson after bringing his jeans in for repair to the Nudie shop in Gothenburg. Apart from underwear, he says has not bought a new item of clothing in years – not an uncommon claim in Sweden.

“The development of sustainable textiles is also part of Sweden’s national strategy. That keeps the Swedish School of Textiles and Science Park Borås, both part of the University of Borås, abuzz with the development of high-tech prototypes and design experiments focused on recycling, reuse, and upcycling.

“ ‘We have to find more efficient production processes … and ways of consuming garments,’ says Susanne Nejderås, textile strategist at Science Park Borås. ‘The mean use of a clothing item is around two years. We need to add another eight years to that.’ ”

I’ll just add that consumers are not only demanding sustainability these days, but human rights. There is widespread concern about China using Uyghur forced labor for cotton products. That’s why I buy cotton towels at Patagonia and fair trade cotton clothes from Fair Indigo in Peru (thanks to blogger Rebecca).

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions welcomed.

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Niger’s Dinosaur Bones

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2023| 9 Comments »

Photo: Filippo Bertozzo​​, Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia​, Matteo Fabbri via Wikimedia Commons.
Ouranosaurus bones are among the many wonders found in Niger. For scale, the right femur is about a yard long.

Niger turns out to be a treasure trove for paleontology and archaeology, and as Nick Roll reports at the Christian Science Monitor, the country is working to develop enough local experts to deal with the riches. It’s not so farfetched in a place where nomads are already texting researchers about archaeological finds.

“Goats, cows, and pedestrians wander by the two unassuming shipping containers along a street in Niger’s riverside capital without a second thought. But inside lie nearly 50 tons of dinosaur bones wrapped in plaster – potentially some of the most significant paleontological finds this landlocked West African country, and even the continent, has ever known.

“There are fossils from perhaps as many as 100 different species, some of them from ancient animals never seen before. 

“ ‘Small animals, mammals, flying reptiles, turtles’ as well as a 40-foot crocodile and ‘a dozen large dinosaurs that are new, including huge 60-footers, says American paleontologist Paul Sereno.

“Getting them to the capital was years in the making – and their journey isn’t over. The initial discoveries were made in 2018 and 2019, in the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert. It would take time and funding for a proper dig, though, so the paleontologists covered them up and buried them, hoping the winds wouldn’t expose them to curious nomads or dangerous smugglers. 

“Then COVID-19 hit, shutting everything down until finally, last fall, Professor Sereno could return to unearth the fossils again.  

“ ‘Niger is going to tell Africa’s story during the dinosaur era,’ he says. …

“The bones, soon to be shipped to Dr. Sereno’s lab at the University of Chicago for research, represent paleontology’s latest win against the harsh desert environment of Niger, which is home not only to fossils but also to soaring temperatures, shifting dunes, and various armed groups.

“But Chicago won’t be the bones’ final resting place. The fossils are earmarked to be eventually returned to Niger, where the kernels of a formal paleontology sector are being planted in a country that contains some of the richest paleontological finds in Africa but boasts no paleontologists of its own, or even academic programs dedicated to the field. 

“ ‘Each time, we see that we find new dinosaurs, new fossils that permit us to say that the soil is rich – unlike other countries, and other continents,’ says Boubé Adamou, an archaeologist at the Institute for Research in Human Sciences who, as one of Niger’s foremost experts on excavations, helped lead this most recent expedition. …

“In a convoy speeding through the desert last fall, the team of about 20 found themselves massively outnumbered by scores of armed men riding in machine gun-mounted trucks. Those were just their guards, determined to keep this modern-day Saharan caravan safe from smugglers or bandits roving the dunes. …

“The team, composed of researchers and students from the United States, Niger, and Europe, went to three dig sites over three months. By the time they finished in December, they had unearthed everything from an Ouranosaurus with a 25-foot-long, bony ‘sail’ across the length of its back to the 6-foot thigh bone of a long-necked sauropod. …

“The vast expanses of Niger were [once] anything but dry, as rivers, wetlands, and lakes stretched across what researchers called the Green Sahara, home at one point to dinosaurs, and later, ancient human civilizations with embalming techniques that predate the Egyptians – relics of which were also found on the fall expedition. …

“It’s easy to see why Niger remains off the beaten path for paleontologists, despite its riches. As one of the poorest nations on Earth, it combines rough infrastructure with harsh desert conditions.

“But even if the Green Sahara is a thing of the past, the desert today is anything but desolate. Local nomads who’ve long mastered the difficult terrain have become key to conducting paleontology there, spotting bones and leading expeditions through otherwise unnavigable desert expanses. While the pandemic held Dr. Sereno’s team at bay, nomads kept a watchful eye on the carefully buried treasures, texting him updates. …

“Niger Heritage is a project drawn up by Dr. Sereno, Mr. Adamou, and coterie of international and Nigerien researchers and government officials. It envisions two museums [with] the capacity to not just display the fossils but also, for the first time, conduct homegrown research. …

“Niger’s first paleontologists, it is hoped, might be in undergraduate courses right now. With the right guidance and funding – to do Ph.D. programs outside the country – they could start correcting the lopsided nature of paleontology, where resources and opportunities are concentrated in rich countries.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions encouraged.

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‘Star Wars’ with African Characters

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 27, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Disney.
Cape Town residents Nadia Darries and Daniel Clarke co-directed Aau’s Song, the final short film in the second volume of the Star Wars: Visions anthology.

I had just given birth to Suzanne when neighbors offered to help out by taking John to Star Wars. He was five, and that was the moment that Star Wars became a big deal in our family.

It was a big deal around the world, too, and today’s story shows that its lasting popularity in Africa has recently led to Disney and Lucasfilm blessing an African version.

Ryan Lenora Brown reports at the Christian Science Monitor, “When George Lucas first created the Star Wars universe [he] probably didn’t imagine extraterrestrial worlds crawling with fynbos, the brightly colored, prickly shrub land of South Africa’s Western Cape. Nor did he likely envision his Jedi warriors channeling the energy of sangomas, southern African traditional healers. 

“But when South African filmmakers Nadia Darries and Daniel Clarke were asked recently to create their own version of the Star Wars universe for an animated short film, their alien world bore distinct imprints of their Earthly homeland. 

“ ‘We weren’t super intentional about it, but of course we are South Africans, so we are drawing on real experiences from our own world,’ says Ms. Darries, an animator from Cape Town whose work has appeared on the BBC.

“The pair’s 15-minute film, Aau’s Song, is part of a recently released anthology called Star Wars: Visions, in which animation studios from around the world were invited to re-imagine the famous fantasy universe through their own eyes.

The resulting shorts feature Jedi in saris, anime-inspired Sith lords, and lightsaber-wielding teenagers with thick Irish brogues. …

“Since its inception, Star Wars has been the world’s darling. And its films have long had a dedicated following across the African continent. In 2015, for instance, The Force Awakens had the single most profitable opening day in South African cinema history to that point. And the Earthside location of Darth Vader’s twin-mooned home planet, Tatooine, is in Tunisia, where it’s been a popular site of pilgrimage for both local and international fans. 

“But the franchise itself has often been slow to reflect back the diversity of its audience. …

“ ‘As someone growing up in South Africa, my perception of sci-fi and fantasy was that the central character will have pale skin, speak English, and probably be a man,’ says Omar Morto, a South African radio presenter, musician, and lifelong Star Wars fan. 

“In recent years, however, Star Wars has made strides to look more representative of planet Earth, featuring protagonists of color and female characters who actually speak – sometimes even to each other. But its universe is still being imagined, largely, by Westerners. 

“Two years ago, Lucasfilm, the Star Wars production house, released a series of short, Star Wars-inspired films made by Japanese anime studios called Star Wars: Visions. The reaction to that series was so positive, producers said, that they decided to create a second volume, this time featuring animators from around the world. …

“For Ms. Darries and Mr. Clarke, who made Aau’s Song with the South African studio Triggerfish, the project never felt quite so cosmic. They simply wanted to tell a story that meant something to them, Mr. Clarke says. 

“Aau’s Song takes place on a planet called Korba. Its inhabitants mine the kyber crystals used in lightsabers, which have been corrupted by the Sith of the Dark Side. Enter Aau, a young girl who has a magical singing voice that can alter the crystals – and a protective father afraid she’ll put herself in danger if she uses it. …

“It [felt natural to Ms. Darries], she says, that the story’s wise woman – a visiting Jedi named Kratu – would resemble a kind of wise woman found in her own family, a sangoma, or diviner. Like Jedi, who often act as peacekeepers and have the power to connect to people’s thoughts, sangomas heal personal and social rifts in part via their connections with the ancestral world. 

“And though the story is about a girl with the power to purify lightsaber crystals, Mr. Clarke says they saw it as fundamentally being ‘about a character healing a poisoned land, which is a very South African story.’ 

“Mr. Morto, the radio presenter, says he can still remember the rainy Cape Town afternoon in the 1990s when his uncle came back from the video rental store with Return of the Jedi. … ‘Since then, it has been my life,’ he says. 

“And so, seeing a Star Wars universe that looked like South Africa in Aau’s Song ‘was special to experience.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here.

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How Small Towns Build Trust

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 26, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Enita Jubrey.
The Citizen’s Academy of Windsor, Connecticut, lets participants view historical documents dating back to the 1600s in the town clerk’s vault. 

Have you heard of the Citizen’s Academy movement? It was new to me. According to the Christian Science Monitor, there are about 1,000 in the United States. They help to build trust in local government and a sense of community.

Sarah Matusek and Sara Lang have a report at the Christian Science Monitor.

“The lifeguard’s legs disappear into the pool. A few tense seconds pass. He emerges with an arm around a limp young man whom he hauls to the deck for CPR.

“The audience applauds. Over a dozen Coloradans on bleacher seats are touring Woodland Park’s aquatic center, a sparkling, tiled complex with ample lap lanes. They convened earlier that April evening to learn about Parks and Recreation … the city department that hires local teens as lifeguards. The evening’s visit is part of an eight-week citizens academy, which ends with a graduation ceremony.

“ ‘It’s been super interesting,’ says Dan Carroll in the pool parking lot. His doubts about the building’s $11.9 million expense to the city were quelled, he says, after learning about its use.

“ ‘I’m going to promote it,’ says Mr. Carroll about the academy program. ‘I think more and more people need to know how the city operates.’ …

“The programs educate civic-minded folks about the gears of local government, and how they might chip in. Proponents also say they have a role to play in shoring up trust.

“ ‘It’s a cheap, easy, very direct way to get meaningful community engagement,’ says Michael Lawson, Woodland Park city manager. …

“The town of roughly 8,000 in conservative Teller County has had its share of community tension recently, with national attention on its school board, which has sparked local protests.

“The city itself, however, doesn’t run schools. Neither does it handle social services like food benefits – that’s the county. Explaining the limited purview of what the city does is a key feature of the citizens academy, Mr. Lawson says. …

“The programs, which go by different names, can last several weeks and are often free. Participants meet local officials like the mayor and visit a range of departments – public safety, waste management, zoning offices – led by local staff. 

“Citizens take advantage of local services daily, like when they turn on the tap or take trash to the curb, but that exists as ‘background noise for most people,’ says [Rick Morse, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government]. Through citizens academies, he adds, ‘that faceless bureaucracy now becomes a person.’

“That’s a lesson the Decatur 101 program in Georgia tries to hit home. Participants receive ‘a book with a picture of all the people that have talked and what their job description is and what they do,’ says Shirley Baylis, business development manager, ‘so they know how to reach each of those people.’

“Dr. Morse conducted a 2016 survey of 658 citizens academy participants across six states. He found 84% of respondents said their program ‘somewhat or significantly positively’ shaped their level of trust in local government.

“A behind-the-scenes look at the water treatment plant in Wichita, Kansas, inspired a perception shift for participant Christopher Parisho. 

“ ‘I already knew it took a while and that it was really expensive, but now I had a better understanding of why,’ he says. … Understanding how your city works doesn’t just help in knowing the right person to field complaints, he adds. It can help someone ‘reach out to the right people when something is done right.’ …

“Several participants say learning about the fiscal responsibility and budgets of their towns is compelling – after all, cities and states can’t rack up debt as easily as the federal government. That includes longtime Woodland Park resident Catherine Nakai. She joined the program in early 2020, between volunteering on a local land-use board and running for City Council. 

“ ‘I understand the budget a whole lot more,’ because of the program, says Council member Nakai. …

“Staffing is one area that citizens academies report as a challenge, in terms of the time commitments the programming demands. [And] broadening access to a wide range of residents presents another hurdle.  

“That’s why Alachua County Citizens Academy in Florida tries to ensure its sessions take place along community bus loops. In Georgia, Decatur 101 offers evening and morning sessions to accommodate different schedules.

“Matt Leighninger, director of the Center for Democracy Innovation at the National Civic League, challenges programs to think beyond the hope that spreading the gospel of government functions will automatically invoke trust. That’s a ‘defensive posture,’ he says, and not always earned. Public officials can also work to better trust their constituents.

“ ‘It’s not enough just to say: Here’s how government works,’ says Mr. Leighninger. ‘The question really should be: Here’s how a government could work,’ with more citizen input.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

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Cutting-Edge Kabuki

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: AP/Yuri Kageyama via Economic Times.
Ten-year-old Maholo is an emerging star in Japan’s 420 year-old Kabuki theater. And he happens to be French.

Having once been turned down for a New Shoreham committee because I was not a year-round resident, I love hearing about famously hidebound organizations that decide to open up. Today’s story is features Kabuki theater opening up.

Yuri Kageyama writes at the Associated Press (AP), “Ten-year-old Maholo Terajima Ghnassia loves watching anime and playing baseball. … And he’s breaking conventions in Japan’s 420-year-old Kabuki theater tradition.

“In Kabuki, all the roles are played by men, including beautiful princesses — a role Maholo accomplishes stunningly in his official stage debut as Maholo Onoe at the Kabuki Theater in downtown Tokyo. … He starts out disguised as a woman, dancing gracefully, before transforming into sword-wielding warrior Iwami Jutaro. He then makes a quick costume change right there on the stage, all while delivering singsong lines in a clear resonating voice unaided by a microphone.

“Out to avenge his father’s death, striking spectacular poses, Maholo performs swashbuckling fight scenes and slays a furry baboon.

” ‘I like “tachimawari” (fight scenes). It feels good, and people who are watching it think it’s cool,’ said Maholo. …

“Maholo’s grandfather, Kikugoro Onoe, appears as the God of War. He praises Maholo’s character, Iwami, and tells him to keep at his art, promising to always be at his side and help him attain his goals.

“Kabuki is typically passed from father to son, the art form largely limited to Japanese men. But Kikugoro Onoe is Maholo’s maternal grandfather; the young Kabuki performer’s father, Laurent Ghnassia, is French. …

“The huge curtain for the stage, which also works as advertising space, is speckled with fluttering dots of purple and orange, designed by French artist Xavier Veilhan of fashion house Chanel. This was Ghnassia’s idea — as an art director, he designs venues, installations, shops and events to market fashion brands, contemporary art and film ventures. …

“Maholo himself isn’t sure yet if he will stick with the strict, demanding art form and someday adopt his grandfather’s stage name, Kikugoro — a prized name in Kabuki passed down through generations of Onoe men.

“Child Kabuki actors go through a difficult transitional period when their voices change with puberty but they aren’t yet mature enough to take adult roles. Only the truly determined ones pull through that stretch to succeed.

“ ‘Unless he is recognized and in demand, he won’t get any roles. He must have the passion. It’s not easy. It’s up to him,’ said Maholo’s mother, renowned actor Shinobu Terajima. She won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival for her poignant performance in the 2010 film Caterpillar.

‘It’s not easy, but choosing the harder path makes life more worthwhile. The more hurdles there are, the climb becomes worth it,’ Terajima said.

“Although Japan has been known for discriminatory attitudes toward foreigners and outsiders, Terajima hopes her son’s French cultural background will give Maholo a unique edge in the world of Kabuki. But he may become a film actor like herself, Terajima said.

“ ‘It must be felt. It’s not just the lines you speak,’ she said. ‘I want him to act by digesting within what’s received from the other, and then return that, changing one’s heart with that received energy. That’s fundamental to acting.’ “

More at AP, here. No firewall.

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An Indigenous Boutique

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 24, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Maria Spann/The Guardian.
Liana Shewey and Korina Emmerich run a forward-thinking indigenous store in New York.

A friend who had just read Rinker Buck’s Life on the Mississippi was telling me recently how stunned she was to learn details of the Trail of Tears and related horrors visited on natives. Most of us know very little about that and have hardly been aware that indigenous people have been living among us all along.

At the very least, we are noticing them more now, learning more.

In today’s article, Sophia Herring of the Guardian interviews two very visible indigenous women with a new kind of shop in New York City.

“Location, location, location. It can make or break a business,” Herring says. “For Liana Shewey and Korina Emmerich, it was a call to action. When a mutual friend told the activists and creatives – Shewey is an educator and Emmerich is a fashion designer – about a newly vacant storefront on the ground floor of her mother’s Manhattan co-op building, the pair … visited the space. … ‘We jumped on it,’ said Shewey.

“The co-op board wasn’t willing to hand the keys over to just anyone. But their friend’s mother is Navajo, and also the board president. Within days the building had its newest tenant: Relative Arts NYC, a boutique that carries pieces by Indigenous designers and also hosts literary readings, album releases and art installations featuring work by Indigenous artists.

“ ‘It just felt so important for us to have a space, as grassroots organizers in the city,’ said Shewey, who was raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation. Building a store that specializes in goods from Indigenous and many female-owned labels was a natural way to support their community. …

“The merchandise builds on their mission to shatter stereotypes. The entrepreneurs speak to ‘Indigenous futurism,’ an emerging art and design movement that leans away from cliches. …

“Emmerich, who grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and whose father is of Puyallup descent, focused on her own fashion label, EMME Studio, in her late 20s and early 30s. Her work has appeared on the cover of InStyle magazine and in the Lexicon of Fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She still makes pieces by special order, and the shop doubles as an atelier. When she spoke with the Guardian, she was rushing to complete a dress that she was making for a producer of Killers of the Flower Moon, the new Martin Scorsese film, to wear to the Cannes film festival. Shewey, whose day job is as an outreach educator at the New-York Historical Society, was speaking from her car, where she was taking a break from a marathon day of teaching four sixth-grade classes.

“The entrepreneurs, who can be found at their shop every weekend, relied on crowdfunding to convert the space into a store. An initial round of fundraising garnered $6,465, which covered shelving units and a sofa from Craigslist. They found a handful of industrial school chairs on the side of the road.

“The pair are breaking even, and still debating whether to form a nonprofit or operate as an LLC. ‘We want Relative Arts to be a greater incubation hub for people to be able to learn, create and work out of,’ said Shewey. …

“Sophia Herring: Tell me about what led you both here.

“Liana Shewey: I lived in Portland for about a decade and got really integrated into the local rock’n’roll scene. I bartended, worked at a local Starbucks, and then eventually started a music production company of my own with a few friends. In 2014, I moved to the Czech Republic and started organizing around the refugee crisis. I came back in 2016 when everything was happening with Standing Rock. It made me realize my struggle is here and I need to be with my community.

“Korina Emmerich: At 13, I made my first jingle dress regalia, and got very into sewing. I came to New York with two suitcases, a cat and $75. I worked in a boutique and I had my own line. I actually had a lot of success, thanks to a company called Brand Assembly that helps support smaller designers. But you slowly realize with everything in the fashion industry, if you want to do it ethically, you will be poor. I just dreamed that one day I would have a space to be able to share everybody’s work.

“Herring: How do you work as a team?

“Emmerich: We’ve been planning and organizing together for so long that we just naturally gravitate towards each other in our work style. Liana is analytical and does the logistical things as well as planning, and organizing when it comes to programming. I have this more creative, community outreach part of my work where building relationships is such an important aspect. …

“Herring: How do you choose what goes in the store?

“Emmerich: Our goal is to showcase contemporary Indigenous designers who are doing fun, subversive, wearable work, as opposed to the assumption of what Indigenous design has to look like. I want to talk about how Indigenous people exist here and now and we’re doing contemporary work here and now. There’s no rule that says we have to only exist in a historical context.

“Herring: What is it like operating an Indigenous business within a community that so rarely acknowledges it’s on Indigenous land to begin with?

“Emmerich: Even though Relative Arts may be the first of its kind, we are not the first ones to be doing this work. It was amazing to have the American Indian Community House come to open the space on our first day, to say a prayer and give us their blessing.

“Shewey: I’m thinking about how many people come off the streets and buy one of our pieces just because they like the garments themselves. Then they look at the basketball jersey and ask: what is the Salish Sea? [The Salish coast, along the north-western US and Canada, is home to Indigenous nations.] If they didn’t know, they walk out having learned about decolonization. …

“Herring: What is your long-term goal?

“Emmerich: We like to think of Relative Arts as a hub. The plans that we have are so much bigger than just a store. …

“Shewey: We’ve mused that we want it to kind of look like an Indigenous-futurist version of Andy Warhol’s Factory. It would be so wonderful to have thousands of feet, although I doubt Andy ever had to apply for funding.”

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall. Donations encouraged.

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Making Energy From Air

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 23, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: Derek Lovley/Ella Maru Studio/UMass Amherst via Newsweek.
Scientists have figured out how to use nanopores to make electricity from thin air. These 100nm pores harvest electricity from water molecules in the air.

Scientists, thank goodness, are still doing science, despite recent hostility. At the Washington Post, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff has a cool story on scientific methods being used to unlock the green energy hidden around us.

“Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution.

“The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material, such as wood or silicon, can be used, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores. But there are many questions about how to scale the product. …

“ ‘It’s like a small-scale, man-made cloud,’ said Jun Yao, a professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the senior author of the study. ‘This is really a very easily accessible, enormous source of continuous clean electricity.’ …

“That could include a forest, while hiking on a mountain, in a desert, in a rural village or on the road.

“The air-powered generator, known as an ‘Air-gen,’ would offer continuous clean electricity because it uses the energy from humidity, which is always present, rather than depending on the sun or wind. Unlike solar panels or wind turbines, which need specific environments to thrive, Air-gens could conceivably go anywhere, Yao said.

“Less humidity, though, would mean less energy could be harvested, he added. Winters, with drier air, would produce less energy than summers.

“The device, the size of a fingernail and thinner than a single hair, is dotted with tiny holes known as nanopores. The holes have a diameter smaller than 100 nanometers, or less than a thousandth of the width of a strand of human hair.

“The tiny holes allow the water in the air to pass through in a way that would create a charge imbalance in the upper and lower parts of the device, effectively creating a battery that runs continuously. …

“While one prototype only produces a small amount of energy — almost enough to power a dot of light on a big screen — because of its size, Yao said Air-gens can be stacked on top of each other, potentially with spaces of air in between. Storing the electricity is a separate issue, he added.

“Yao estimated that roughly 1 billion Air-gens, stacked to be roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce a kilowatt and partly power a home in ideal conditions. The team hopes to lower both the number of devices needed and the space they take up by making the tool more efficient. Doing that could be a challenge.

“The scientists first must work out which material would be most efficient to use in different climates. Eventually, Yao said he hopes to develop a strategy to make the device bigger without blocking the humidity that can be captured. He also wants to figure out how to stack the devices on top of each other effectively and how to engineer the Air-gen so the same size device captures more energy. …

“It could be embedded in wall paint in a home, made at a larger scale in unused space in a city or littered throughout an office’s hard-to-get-to spaces. And because it can use nearly any material, it could extract less from the environment than other renewable forms of energy.”

Well, OK, it needs work. But you know that someone will move this into the practical realm someday. More at the Post, here.

By the way, it is also possible to make drinking water from air. Read about how that is actually happening in Africa, here.

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Bomb Victim Tames Mt. Everest

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Shanta Nepali.
He lost his legs in Afghanistan, went on to summit Everest.

Today’s story reminds me that people can overcome almost anything if it’s important to them — and if they believe they can.

Bryan Pietsch has the story at the Washington Post.

“Hari Budha Magar was born in the foothills of the Himalayas. Growing up in Nepal, surrounded by the mountains and seeing Mount Everest constantly in textbooks and local media, he thought about climbing it someday.

“But school kept him busy, and then at 19, he left his country to join a Gurkha unit in the British army. He saw and skied through mountain ranges around the world on his missions and travels, but he was still ‘thinking about Everest all the time,’ he said in an interview.

“Those bucket-list plans to climb the world’s tallest peak were complicated by an explosion in Afghanistan in 2010 that left Budha Magar with above-the-knee amputations on both of his legs. But after years of preparation — and delays due to the coronavirus pandemic and a rule that sought to keep people with certain physical disabilities off the mountain — Budha Magar made history [in May] by becoming the first above-the-knee double amputee to summit the 29,000-foot peak. …

“Budha Magar was part of a 12-person team led by Krishna Thapa, another Gurkha veteran. The pair served together in the army for three years and were reunited in 2016 as Thapa was planning an Everest expedition.

“ ‘What do you think? I’ve got no legs,’ Thapa recalled Budha Magar asking him. ‘Do you think it is possible I could climb Everest?’

“ ‘We can only try,’ Thapa replied.

“After acclimating to the elevation and the snowy, windy environment at base camp, the team intended to start the journey to the summit on April 17 — exactly 13 years after the explosion in Afghanistan that took Budha Magar’s legs — but poor weather delayed them for weeks. This year’s conditions were especially difficult, Thapa said. …

“Unpredictable wind — despite access to three separate weather forecasting tools — and conditions such as slushy snow [proved] challenging. ‘The snow was soft,’ Budha Magar said, ‘and I didn’t have knees to lift up.’

“Budha Magar said there were times when he wanted to give up, and Thapa said there were a couple of moments when he thought they wouldn’t be able to move forward. But they persisted.

“ ‘Hari kept surprising me,’ Thapa said.

“They summited about 3:10 p.m. [May 19], spending only a few minutes at the peak due to harsh conditions. At the summit, Budha Magar said his tears — happy ones — froze on his cheek. Some on the team had to fetch more oxygen on the descent, and Budha Magar was so exhausted that he slid down on his rear end for part of it. …

“Budha Magar, who lives in Canterbury, England, said his 10-year-old son was especially worried about him attempting the climb. ‘I promised myself, “I’ll come back for you. I’m not going to go die up there,” ‘ he said. …

“Many Nepalese believe that people with disabilities were sinners in their past lives, Budha Magar said.

“ ‘I wanted to show that disabled people can have a happy, successful and meaningful life,’ he said. ‘Our disability might be our weakness, but we can do many other things.’ ”

More at the Post, here.

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Generosity In the Curriculum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: Jenna Hauck/ Chilliwack Progress.
Children in Canada buying coffee for two strangers at Vedder Park during Watson Elementary’s Kindness Project on March 15. It’s all part of the curriculum.

How do you raise children who are kind? Partly by example. And maybe partly by putting generosity in the school curriculum. It can’t hurt to set aside a time for kids to know the satisfaction of committing random acts of kindness.

Sydney Page at the Washington Post writes about an experiment in Canada.

“While writing report cards several years ago, Jennifer Thiessen was troubled by something. Her third-grade students were being evaluated on subjects such as math and science, but not on life skills — such as social responsibility and kindness.

“ ‘That’s the stuff that I feel is really important for them to learn and carry forward in their lives,’ Thiessen said. … ‘There are so many important life lessons I wanted to teach them outside of the curriculum,’ said Thiessen, a teacher at Canada’s Watson Elementary School in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

“She mentioned her concerns to Kyla Stradling, then a fellow teacher at the school, and they hatched a plan. They assigned their students a project that had nothing to do with standard school subjects. Instead, it was centered on spreading goodwill. They called it the ‘Kindness Project.’

“ ‘If we could be that spark of kindness, we could inspire others to do acts of kindness,’ Thiessen told her third-graders in 2018.

“Students from two separate third-grade classes made cupcakes at home and sold them for $1 during a series of bake sales at the school. They raised about $400 and used the proceeds to purchase small gifts — things like bouquets of flowers, dog treats, chocolate bars and coffees — and handed them out to strangers near the school.

‘The students felt joy inside of them; that they did something that day that mattered,’ Thiessen said.

“Many of the gift recipients seemed ‘caught off guard’ at first, she said, though they were all in when the students explained what the project was about. Some were moved to tears. … She decided to make it a yearly activity for third-graders at the school.

“ ‘This project isn’t about who can read the best and who is best at math,’ she said. ‘This is an everybody project. It doesn’t have any limitations when it comes to ability.’

“For the past five years, third-grade students at Watson Elementary have embraced the Kindness Project. They host several bake sales to raise money, and each class adds their own spin to the assignment. During the pandemic, for instance, students collected funds to put together care packages for front-line workers.

“ ‘Every year, we sit down with them and ask them how they want to spend the money,’ Thiessen said. …

“Occasionally, students can be ‘a little overzealous,’ she said. As she brainstormed with her class this year, one child enthusiastically said: ‘Let’s buy someone a house!’ …

“Given the success of the project, the school decided to broaden it this year to involve five classes — including three third-grade classes, and some students in second and fourth grades. They started selling cupcakes each week at the school in February, and over five weeks, they raised more than $1,000 — the highest amount yet. …

“This year, the 100 students split up into several groups to focus on different initiatives. While one group wrote cards and bought small gifts to hand out to strangers, another put together care packages with essential supplies — including toothbrushes, snacks, gloves, socks and sanitizer — for homeless children and teens. Other students made a ‘teacher appreciation bin’ filled with treats and goodies and dropped it off at a nearby school.

“On March 15, the students and chaperones divided and carried out their various kindness missions. Some stayed at coffee shops surrounding the school, offering to buy beverages for strangers, while others waited around a local park, passing out dog treats and fresh flowers. Several students did a forest cleanup. …

“Though the goal of the project is to start a chain of kindness within the community (one man offered up $20 toward next year’s fundraising effort, Thiessen said), it’s also intended to show the students what they are capable of.

“ ‘I think what I want most for them is to know that it doesn’t matter where you come from or how old you are, you can do something that is good,’ Thiessen said.”

The idea of buying someone a house is not necessarily “overzealous,” I’d say. It shows the kid is already thinking about about adult-sized needs. Isn’t that the point?

More at the Post, here. For a version with no firewall, click on the Chilliwack Progress, here.

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Making Art Lifts Spirits

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

Since ancient times, people have found all sorts of ways to get themselves on an even keel when they are feeling down. I’m the last person to say folk remedies can cure real depression, but I am interested in the many ways people lift their spirits.

At the New York Times, Christina Caron writes about people who use art.

“When Dr. Frank Clark was in medical school studying to be a psychiatrist, he decided to write his first poem.

“ ‘All that chatter that is in my head, everything that I’ve been feeling, I can now just put it on paper and my pen can do the talking,’ he said, recalling his thoughts at the time.

“Back then, he was struggling with depression and had been relying on a number of things to keep it at bay, including running, therapy, medication and his faith.

“ ‘I had to find something else to fill the void,’ he said. It turned out that poetry was the missing piece in his ‘wellness puzzle.’

“But there’s a ‘really robust body of evidence’ that suggests that creating art, as well as activities like attending a concert or visiting a museum, can benefit mental health, said Jill Sonke, research director of the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine. …

“Dr. James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist and the founder of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, pioneered something called the ‘three drawing technique.’ It is featured in the new book Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. …

“If you are one of the many people who have turned to adult coloring books, it may not come as a surprise that research suggests this activity can help ease anxiety.

“Coloring within the lines — of an intricate pattern, for example — appears to be especially effective. One study that evaluated college students, and another that assessed older adults, found that spending 20 minutes coloring a mandala (a complex geometric design) was more helpful at reducing anxiety than free-form coloring for the same length of time.

“Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the author of 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, described coloring as a ‘mini mental vacation.’ When we focus on the texture of the paper and choose the colors that please us, it becomes easier to tune out distractions and stay in the moment, she said.

“ ‘It’s a great form of meditation for people who hate meditation.’

“Listening to music, playing an instrument or singing can all be beneficial, research shows.

“A 2022 study, for example, surveyed more than 650 people in four age groups and asked them to rank the artistic activities that helped them ‘feel better’ during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. The youngest participants, ages 18 to 24, overwhelmingly rated musical activities as most effective. Across all age groups, ‘singing’ was ranked among the top activities. …

“[Susan Magsamen, an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a co-author of the book] noted that music can be effective at reducing stress because things like rhythm and repetitive lyrics and chords engage multiple regions of the brain.

“ ‘I sing in the shower,’ Ms. Magsamen said. ‘I sing at the top of my lungs to the radio.’

“Dr. Clark has continued to write poetry since graduating from medical school and offered some tips for those interested in trying.

“First, banish any thoughts that you aren’t creative enough. … Start with a simple haiku, Dr. Clark suggested. Haikus consist of just three lines — the first and last lines have five syllables and the middle has seven.”

That’s not all there is to a haiku, of course, but it can really get you going with poems. I used it with sixth grade students a lot when I was teaching, not for mental health, but it sure lifted spirits.

More at the Times, here.

Photo: Making art can make you happy. More here.

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Converting Office Buildings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 19, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor.
Chicago’s Classical Revival office building at 208 S. LaSalle St. is being converted to residences with 280 planned apartments in the heart of the city’s financial district.

The other day, I was listening to Boston’s Mayor Michelle Wu on Boston Public Radio talking about our region’s severe housing crisis and how she’s working to convert empty office buildings to housing. She aims to make the change incrementally — even a few apartments in each building would make a huge difference.

Boston is not the only city considering this approach.

Laurent Belsie and Story Hinkley report at the Christian Science Monitor, “At the corner of LaSalle and Adams streets in downtown Chicago, the City National Bank and Trust Co. building rises like an elegant monument to the past. Its Doric columns, carved rosettes, and lion’s heads evoke the Classical Revival style popular a century ago. But it’s a deceptive facade.

“The bank, whose name still adorns the front, disappeared in a merger 60 years ago. The building now houses two hotels, offices for professionals and a host of nonprofits, and a British men’s clothing store. And after a city competition to reimagine its financial district, the building will soon change again. The offices will give way to 280 residences: studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments, and amenities like a fitness center and even a private dog run. …

“With fewer workers going to the office, office vacancy rates stand at a 30-year high. Lease revenue is falling, especially in older buildings, and owners are seeing the value of their properties plunge. …

“Developers could upgrade their buildings or convert them to other uses, but in many cases the costs are prohibitive. And a slowing economy, rising interest rates, and tighter lending standards make those conversions even harder. Hanging over them is a cloud of uncertainty: Is the work-from-home movement a permanent change, or just a temporary post-pandemic phenomenon?

“Despite this murky outlook, some cities are charging forward with conversion plans and subsidies. With fewer workers to keep their central business districts vibrant, these cities are hoping to replace them with apartment-dwellers and kick-start a transformation of their downtowns.

“By helping developers convert offices to living units, the mayor of Washington, D.C., hopes to add 15,000 people to the 25,000 or so residents already living downtown. Pittsburgh has cobbled together some $6 million in state and federal funds for its downtown conversion program. Seattle last month put out a ‘call for ideas,’ inviting building owners and architects to come up with new solutions for struggling office buildings.

“Chicago is one of the leaders of the adaptive reuse movement. In March, the city selected the City National Bank building and two other nearby buildings for its LaSalle Street Reimagined project, which aims to revitalize the financial district. Last week, the city chose two more buildings for conversions, which will receive city help and subsidies. In all, the projects will mean more than 1,600 new downtown living apartments in what the city calls one of the largest office-to-residential conversions in the nation.

“ ‘It’s important for the resiliency of downtown,’ says Cindy Chan Roubik, deputy commissioner of the city’s planning and development department. ‘It’s important to have people at different hours of the day and with different uses. You’ll have more people here on the weekends, after work hours, and that provides a vitality.’

“The logic for such conversions makes sense – to a point. … Since the end of 2019, apartment rents have soared around the country while office leasing revenue has slumped by nearly a fifth after adjusting for inflation, according to researchers at New York and Columbia universities. 

“Also, these averages mask considerable variation. Top-rated office space is holding its own, perhaps because companies want the best amenities to lure their workers back to the office. Less desirable and older office space is seeing much higher vacancy rates.

“And it is precisely these older, smaller office towers that make the best candidates for conversion to apartments. They’re typically easier to reconfigure to meet city codes, such as rules requiring every apartment to have windows. Then there’s the history and architecture, a big draw for some city-dwellers.

“The problems are scale and cost. Even with their recent uptick, the rate of conversions is far too low to solve cities’ office vacancy problem, CBRE says. And the economics are problematic. In a report last month, Moody’s Analytics found that only 35 of the nearly 1,100 office buildings it tracks in the New York City metro area were suitable for conversion. The rest of the buildings are too expensive to make conversions viable, which means either government subsidies or a big drop in office values and rents would be needed.

“Such a drop is precisely what has happened, according to the New York and Columbia researchers. In their analysis of the New York office market, they calculated that the actual value of the city’s office buildings had already fallen by 46% since the pandemic and would edge down to more than 50% by 2029 if the work-from-home trend persists. Those averages include top-rated office space; without that space in the calculation, the declines would be even worse. …

” ‘The unit costs are so high [if you do a conversion, however],’ says Dennis McClendon, a Chicago historian and geographer. For ‘half the cost, you could adapt and build the unit in a walk-up building in an outlying neighborhood.’

“On the brighter side of the ledger, America’s cities have shown remarkable resilience and creativity in keeping up with the times.” 

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

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Three Van Goghs in a Watch

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 18, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: David A. Lindon/BBC.
These micro paintings cannot be seen with the naked eye.

We were speaking of miniatures. Today’s story is about an artist who goes beyond miniature to microscopic: art that can’t be seen with the naked eye, art that has to be painted at night to avoid the slightest jostling from traffic.

Cathy Free wrote about the artist at the Washington Post. “Late at night while most everyone in the coastal English town of Bournemouth is sleeping, David A. Lindon sits in front of a microscope making the tiniest of artworks. His creations are so minuscule and precise, he steadies his hands by only moving them between his own heartbeats.

“One twitch — or worse, something as disastrous as a sneeze — and his latest painting or sculpture could disappear into the fibers of his carpet or be lost forever in the jumble of tools on his desk. … A few years ago, at least one piece of artwork became lodged inside Lindon’s nose, never to be seen again.

“ ‘I inhaled it by accident, and poof. It was gone,’ he said. ‘To do what I do, you practically have to work yourself into a trance.’ …

“He started out putting each of his tiny masterpieces inside the eye of a needle or on top of a pin. His latest work is rotating as a wearable miniature art gallery inside a watch.

“To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands last month, Lindon collaborated with Edward Hammond, the founder of Hammond Galleries in the United Kingdom, to re-create three of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings — ‘Starry Night,‘ ‘Sunflowers‘ and ‘Self-Portrait‘ in micro form. … The project took him six months.

“The watch with the microscopic Van Goghs is now on view at Hammond Galleries, valued at $190,000. …

“Lindon has three other pieces on display in New York this summer at an exhibition called ‘Small Is Beautiful,’ and he said he’s next hoping to showcase the world’s smallest zoo. …

“ ‘What I do doesn’t take up much space, but it’s very, very hard to do,’ he said. ‘It takes hundreds of hours.’ …

“Lindon, a former engineer who once worked in the aircraft industry, said he developed a fascination [with] ultra small-scale art after watching a TV special in the U.K. about artists who enjoyed creating diminutive works.

“In 2019, he said he decided to create a few of his own pieces and spent months working on his painstaking technique. His first piece was a wee Dalmatian that he made for his daughter, Abigail. It measured about a half of a millimeter long, and was crafted from materials that included porcelain, nylon, carbon fiber and precious metals.

“ ‘She suggested that I put it online, so I posted it on Facebook and Instagram,’ he said. ‘When people went nuts over it, I knew I must be on to something.’

“Lindon experimented with materials such as carpet fibers and crushed micro pigments, and he developed his own small tools, including a blade made from a hypodermic needle with a diamond fragment on the tip, and brushes made with fibers from silkworms.

“ ‘People ask me, “Do you paint with the leg of a fly?” But I actually use micro hooks and shovels that I’m constantly remaking,’ he said. …

“His work is reminiscent of the famed micro artist Willard Wigan, who for decades has painted with materials such as human eyelashes, and has won two Guinness World Records for the tiniest art made by a human hand. Other micro artists — including Hasan Kale, who paints on a grain of rice, as well as almond slivers, and Salavat Fidai, who makes sculptures on the tip of a pencil — have gained notoriety for their talents in the world of tiny art.

“Lindon said he usually works late at night so vibrations from traffic won’t disturb his concentration or cause his art to tremble under the microscope. ‘One mistake and it’s gone,’ he said. …

“His most frustrating loss was a mini reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman,‘ Lindon said.

“ ‘She has lots of color and is very angular with lots of straight lines,’ he said. ‘Basically, she’s a jigsaw. Earlier this year, I got three-quarters of the way through this complicated piece when my fingers suddenly twitched and I ripped the painting apart.

“ ‘I could have cried, but I carried on,’ Lindon added. …

“He said that mishaps happen less frequently now that he has taught himself to control his heartbeat by slowing down his breathing and relaxing.”

People sure come up with the most amazing hobbies! More at the Post, here.

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Homeless Hotline Angel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 17, 2023| 8 Comments »

Photo: Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media.
A homeless camp set up in Connecticut.

We really do have housing crisis in this country, and it’s going to be expensive to fix it. Government can’t do it alone, says my friend Jeanne, who has been researching the subject. It will require partnerships with builders and communities that imagine the current situation can’t hurt them.

In the meantime, don’t blame the people who fall into homelessness. It’s harder than ever to work your way out.

Joana Slater writes at the Washington Post about a woman in Connecticut who has been there and now assists others. “Shanta Wiley sits down in a swivel chair, slips on a black headset and takes a deep breath. Three minutes to go. It’s 7:57 a.m. on a Friday, and the Connecticut homelessness hotline that Wiley staffs is about to open.

“With each shift, Wiley hears from people sleeping in cars and parks, people evicted by landlords or turned out by relatives. Frightened, angry, vulnerable people seeking shelter at a time of rising rents in one of the most expensive states in the country. Calls have surged in recent years, and Wiley’s job is to funnel a tide of need toward limited help.

“On this morning, Wiley’s mind is still on one of the prior day’s callers: a young woman living in her car with her 2-year-old child. For several minutes, Wiley just listened to her cry. Then they made a list of next steps to find a spot at a shelter.

“She’s still thinking about the woman when a beep sounds on the line.

“ ‘211 Housing Crisis,’ Wiley answers, her voice light and even. ‘Shanta speaking, how can I help you?’

“It’s a mother of two girls, ages 5 and 6. She’s staying temporarily in a hotel in the southern part of the state. Checkout is in three hours and she doesn’t know where to go. Before the hotel, she and her kids were staying in a car, ‘taking washes at McDonald’s and stuff,’ the woman says. ‘There’s nobody out here to lean on at all.’

“ ‘Completely understand,’ says Wiley. ‘Glad to assist you.’

“Behind the courtesy is a story the caller will never hear. Wiley understands exactly how the woman is feeling. She knows, because she was once the person calling for help.

“Wiley, 41, started working at the 211 Housing Crisis Line, which is run by United Way of Connecticut, in January. For nearly a decade, it has served as the central access point for all shelters in the state.

“The work is a window into the acute shortage of affordable housing nationwide and the withdrawal of pandemic-era programs aimed at protecting Americans from eviction and hunger. …

“So much of what [Wiley] hears on the calls echoes her own experience. There was the man who, when Wiley asked when he last ate, said he was fine with a cup of coffee. Wiley remembered that well. When she had no money for groceries at the end of the month, she’d let her kids eat while she just drank coffee. …

“Wiley went to a high school with a lively debate program, which she loved. In her senior year, she became pregnant and had a baby boy. She still graduated. After a year, she dropped out of college and later broke up with her fiance. It was the start of a long period of instability. She had another son and was staying with her parents when they were evicted from their apartment in 2005. Wiley and her two boys, the youngest an infant, ended up in a shelter in south Hartford.

“Even then, she was always working, always pushing ahead with her studies. At the shelter, Wiley’s mom watched the kids while Wiley worked the overnight shift processing checks for Bank of America. For four years, Wiley worked at Target. She completed her associate’s degree and later her bachelor’s in business administration.

“But steady housing remained elusive. Many landlords seemed wary of renting to a single mother. There were spells staying with her mother, with a cousin, with a boyfriend. She and her boys slept on couches and living room floors.

“In 2012, she was living at her mother’s place when it was condemned, forcing the whole family, yet again, to look for somewhere else to live. A friend told Wiley about an apartment available in her building.

“It was the worst one yet: Drug dealers hung out inside the front entrance and patrolled the halls. The building was regularly raided by police. Wiley remembers sitting at the kitchen table and crying as she tried to finish a college paper on entrepreneurship while people used drugs outside in the hallway.

“After a month, she saw a listing for a place nearby and grabbed it. She had started a new job with the Hispanic Health Council doing outreach with pregnant women. That meant she needed a car to do home visits, so she purchased a used Saturn Ion.

“Soon she faced a choice familiar to many on the hotline: Either she lost the car critical to her job, or she fell behind on rent. She chose the latter. If she had to, she reasoned, she would park her car in her mom’s driveway and her kids would sleep inside while Wiley stayed in the vehicle.

“Midmorning, Wiley takes the first of two 15-minute breaks. … She just sighs.

“ ‘It’s heavy,’ she says. … Especially in situations where ‘there’s no answer — or not much of an answer.’

“Sometimes, when Wiley puts callers on hold to look up information or arrange appointments, she uses it as a chance to step away from the intensity of the need. …

“At 11:56, Wiley takes a call from a mother of two children, ages 3 and 13. They’ve recently arrived in Connecticut from Georgia and are staying with a friend, but it’s a volatile situation. The woman is reluctant to say more. Wiley explains that she will arrange an intake interview for a shelter, but a spot is not guaranteed.

“ ‘Are you okay?’ she asks. ‘Not really,’ the woman replies, and begins to cry. Wiley urges her to get her teenager enrolled in school and directs her to the state’s child-care hotline so she can apply for assistance for her toddler.

“ ‘She has to get that child in school as soon as possible,’ Wiley says. That’s the very first thing Wiley would do when she and her boys were in a new area. It gave them a sense of normalcy, she says, plus ‘I could think while they’re in school.’ …

“Wiley’s mind is on the future. She is teaching herself a programming language so she can look for work as a data analyst to increase her pay. ‘I want to break those generational curses,’ she says.

“Her older son is studying to become a machinist and her younger son is preparing to attend the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. … A few weeks ago, her older son, Justus, gave her a measure of closure. He told her everything that had happened to them wasn’t all her fault. ‘He’s like, “You were always working and going to school. You really was trying,” ‘ Wiley recalls.

“Looking back, Wiley says there were times she made poor decisions. But mostly, it’s a question of the system, she says. What she hears on her calls hasn’t changed much since she was one of the callers.

“ ‘You have to literally be at the total bottom before they help you,’ she says. ‘They’re not going to help you before you get to that point.’ ”

Do you notice how many of those experiencing homelessness are women with young children? In addition to the lack of housing, something else is definitely not right.

More at the Post, here. For deeper insight, read Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, here, or Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers, here.

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