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Constant Phone Checking and Dementia

January 19, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Samuel Cruz/Unsplash.
New research shows that constantly breaking your focus is bad for brain health.

In one of my routine harangues, I like to say that “notifications” are part of a tech conspiracy to ensure that we are never allowed to finish a thought. I can’t tell you how much I hate notifications. I try to block them on every feature of my phone.

To back me up, there is lots of research indicating that constant phone checking undermines cognitive health. It is even associated with dementia. When you yourself are instigating the constant checking, not just a push notification, you really better do something.

The Washington Post invented a composite figure from the new data — “Amy” — to illustrate just what is going on with your brain.

Amaya Verde and Luis Melgar report, “For many of us, checking our phones has probably become an unconscious reflex, similar to breathing or blinking. And like Amy, a composite character who illustrates usual patterns of phone usage, we are interacting with our phones a high number of times.

“Glancing at your phone can begin to compromise your cognitive skills once it passes a certain threshold. Studies from Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. and Keimyung University in South Korea found that checking your phone about 110 times a day may signal high risk or problematic use.

“Over eight years of research involving teenagers and millennials, Larry Rosen, a professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, observed that participants checked or unlocked their smartphones between 50 and more than 100 times per day, on average every 10 to 20 minutes while awake. …

” ‘The phones and digital media are reinforcing for our brains, activating the same reward pathway as drugs and alcohol. The phones create a compulsive habit loop where we check without thinking and experience withdrawal when we don’t check or don’t have access to our phone,’ said Anna Lembke, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.

“According to a survey conducted by YouGov in May on phone use, when Americans were asked where they place their devices before going to sleep, 8 out of 10 said they keep them in their bedrooms, most often next to their beds. …

People underestimate how often they check their phones.

“When asked in the same survey how many times they pick up their devices each day, most respondents believed they did so about 10 times. A study by the Singapore Management University found that frequent interruptions to check our devices lead to more attention and memory lapses. Unlike total screen time, the frequency of smartphone checks is a much stronger predictor of daily cognitive failures. …

“The habit is widespread. YouGov found that more than half of Americans check their phones multiple times during social activities such as eating with others or meeting friends.

“At work, during a 30-minute meeting, 1 in 4 people admitted to checking their phone at least once. After each workplace interruption, it can take more than 25 minutes to regain focus, said Gloria Mark, a researcher at the University of California at Irvine.

“Most people receive push notifications throughout the day, such as messages, emails and alerts, many of which originate from social media platforms. ‘Our constant need for connection increases the brain’s biochemistry, particularly anxiety-producing chemicals such as cortisol, which nags at us to “check in” upward of 100 times a day,’ Rosen explained. … ‘Whatever generational differences that were studied when the smartphone and social media arrived are now basically minimal.’ …

“German researchers from Heidelberg University found that after just 72 hours without smartphone use, brain activity began to mirror patterns typically seen in substance withdrawal. The investigation suggests that short breaks from smartphone use can help reduce problematic habits by reorganizing our reward circuits, making them more flexible.

“Experts offered simple ways to break unhelpful device habits. ‘Make the phone less reinforcing by turning off notifications, deleting all but the most necessary apps, going grayscale and powering the phone off between use. I also recommend leaving the phone behind on occasion, just to remind ourselves we can still navigate the world without our phones,’ Lembke said.”

More at the Post, here.

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Asheville’s Foraging Schools

January 18, 2026 by suzannesmom

Composite photo: No Taste Like Home/Emily Cataneo.
Alan Muskat teaches North Carolina kids about foraging as part of his afterschool program in fall 2025. Tour guide Dimitri Magiasis shows off some mushrooms he foraged. 

My childhood friend Ursula seems to have mostly recovered from the devastation of 2024’s Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. She has gone back to teaching weaving, for example, but I’m still waiting to see the promised photo of her home’s restoration.

Life goes on if you survive disaster, and most people make adjustments to how they were living before. We need to keep learning.

An experienced forager has begun teaching young learners in Asheville about a side of nature that’s more benign than hurricanes. Emily Cataneo has report at the Guardian.

“Juniper Stewart just turned 12. She … knows how to identify a Pilobolus mushroom, which grows on ‘cow poop,’ according to Juniper. She can confidently harvest plantain leaf, a ubiquitous wild plant that’s tasty in salads and sautées, and useful as a poultice on stings and poison ivy. She has paper bags full of sourwood leaves drying at home to make tea, and she’s delighted by the fact that when you touch jewelweed seed pods, they explode.

“Juniper’s deep knowledge of the wild plants around her home in western North Carolina stems from her involvement in an after-school program that taught kids in Asheville and surrounding towns how to forage. For three days a week [last] fall, foraging guides brought groups of students ages five to 12 from City Mountain Public Montessori out to forests and fields to learn about the plentiful berries, mushrooms, leafy greens and even flavorful sticks in their own backyard.

“The program is the brainchild of Alan Muskat, a ‘philosoforager’ who runs No Taste Like Home, an educational company that for the past 30 years has taught locals and tourists alike how to plumb the bounty of the southern Appalachians, one of the most biodiverse areas in the world. …

“Muskat hatched his idea to teach kids in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the storm that devastated Asheville in September 2024 [to] serve as a ‘different kind of hurricane relief.’

“Muskat has built his life philosophy on the idea that many of society’s ills stem from our fear of the natural world, our tendency to live in opposition to it rather than in harmony with it. After the hurricane, he wanted to impart those lessons on young people who lived through the storm. …

“ ‘It felt a little to me when the hurricane happened that we were in a dress rehearsal for what could happen with [future] natural disasters,’ [Juniper’s mother] said. ‘The grocery store shelves were completely bare and people were eating government-rationed food, which is not as healthy as making a big chickweed [salad].’ …

“During the after-school program, a bus brought the kids from school to an educational site outside Asheville. Led by a No Taste Like Home guide, the kids would ‘run around and find things, and ask if they were edible,’ according to Jemma Ferrington, nine, whose house was destroyed in the hurricane and who participated in the program. She added: ‘I’d identify lots of things, like some mushrooms that had gills, and some that had a sponge at the bottom.’ …

“The program has faced some setbacks. … A staff member questioned Muskat after he let kids eat white milk cap mushrooms, which in large quantities can irritate the stomach, and pushed him to remind kids that not all white mushrooms are safe to eat (‘he was right’ about the second complaint, Muscat acknowledged in an email, adding that one of the ‘golden rules of foraging is, don’t overgeneralize’).

“In addition to the after-school program, No Taste Like Home has run two foraging field trips, with plenty of chaperones to keep an eye on kids, which they hope to repeat in 2026. …

“[Guide Dimitri] Magiasis, who discovered the world of foraging while studying to be a naturopath in Seattle, has worked for Muskat for nine years, leading a couple tours per week. …

“[Recently] Magiasis gathered the group near a rushing brook to explain that they’d be ‘meeting’ plants such as cool-weather greens, herbs and spices, and mushrooms, although this fall has brought a drought to the region that’s rendered the mushroom population sparse.

“That’s just a part of foraging, said Magiasis. The practice forces you to redefine the way you think about food availability. ‘You go into the grocery store and find onions, apples, lettuce 365 days per year,’ he said. ‘Nature doesn’t work that way. She’s going to provide what she’s going to provide.’ …

“On the tour, Magiasis is strict about safety. When we’re looking for chickweed, he points out the plant’s chief identifying features: the leaf edges are smooth, not serrated. They’re shaped like spades, or hearts, and furry on only one side. He checks each person’s leaf before they’re allowed to eat it, then counts one, two, three before we pop them into our mouths.

“For many, safety is a big question around foraging, especially for kids. Ten to 12 mushroom species in western North Carolina are deadly, for example, and a couple hundred more will make you extremely sick. But guides and parents alike stressed that knowledge is power and that for them, it’s actually more dangerous not to teach their kids how to forage.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Critters That Can Handle Extremes

January 17, 2026 by suzannesmom

Art: L.M.F. Doyère, “Mémoire sur les Tardigrades,” Annales des sciences naturelles: Zoologie et biologie animale, 1840.
Tardigrades are one of the life forms that survive under extreme conditions.

Science writer Alex Riley has hope for our planet, but his hope doesn’t necessarily include humans. Maybe if more of us appreciated and learned from science, he would feel differently.

At the Christian Science Monitor, Erin Douglass interviews Riley about the adaptive life forms he studied for his new book, Super Natural.

“In Super Natural,” she writes, “award-winning science writer Alex Riley casts his inquisitive, generous gaze upon … the far-deep, far-up, and far-flung life-forms that inhabit Earth’s less move-in-ready biomes. From snailfish and wood frogs to painted turtles and tardigrades, these remarkable creatures display a knack for thriving – or at least carrying on – in a niche of their own. …

Erin Douglass
“You describe finding solace in nature as a boy growing up in the 1990s. Do you have an early memory that stands out?”

Alex Riley
“I grew up in North Yorkshire, so northern England. It was very rural, very picturesque, but very lonely as well. You had to find your own interests. 

“We had this pond at the bottom of the garden, and frogspawn was there. It’s very mundane for grown-ups – a frog turns from a tadpole to a froglet to a frog – but for me to watch that was enthralling. Even today, that strikes me as something incredible: There are transformations going on around us, whether it’s caterpillars to moths or tadpoles into frogs. I think that metamorphosis was really crucial to my upbringing.”

Douglass
“You organize the book by conditions – heat, cold, depth, height, etc. Why did you choose this framework?

Alex Riley
“I didn’t want to make it too complex. I wanted a layperson to pick up this book, look at those chapters, and say, ‘OK, I understand these environmental stresses, and I want to learn more about them.’ 

“In the book’s sequence, I started with water – or lack of water – because water is so associated with life. That’s what NASA used to search for extraterrestrial life. Everything that we know in terms of life on Earth has involvement with water and requires it in their cells. We evolved from water. “

Douglass
“What’s behind the title?

Riley
“There’s a double meaning there. You Americans say ‘super’ for ‘very’ – so all of this stuff is very natural. But there’s also this supernatural element that’s sort of inexplicable. We can’t even comprehend how fungi survived in Chernobyl on the reactor that exploded, and actually used the radiation for their sustenance. We can’t imagine what it’s like to live in complete darkness and have no association with sunlight.” …

Douglass
“You call the tardigrade ‘the poster child of life’s resilience.’ What makes these tiny beings so amazing?”

Riley
“They’ve been studied since the 1770s, and we’re still trying to uncover how they are so tough. They’re adorable: Under a microscope, they look like little bears with a piglike snout, eight chubby legs. Even their movement is adorable. They don’t just swim or walk – they bumble through grains of sand and moss, and in the seabed. And yet, they’re almost indestructible.”

Douglass
“Which creature impressed you the most?”

Riley
“The microbes that live in the subsurface. There’s water down there, and there’s radiation from the rocks, and that radiation splits the water and it produces hydrogen. All these microbes need is that hydrogen and something to accept it; chemosynthesis is what they’re doing, but it’s very, very basic. We didn’t know that life could exist below the surface, below soil level. But these microbes have been found 5 kilometers down into the bedrock. 

“If we’re going to find extraterrestrial life, say on the moons of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter, these are worlds that are ice-covered, and they’re going to be dark. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. If there is going to be life elsewhere, then these little microbes in the subsurface seem to be a good example of what it could be like.”

Douglass
“You emphasize that endurance over the ages is only possible with ingenuity – and being different. Would you say more about that?”

Riley
“Life has to be different in order to survive, because to compete for resources, it pays to go against the grain.  If you’re a snailfish living 8,000 meters down in the Mariana Trench, you’ve got a pretty good life because you’ve pushed into this extreme that no other fish can get into. You have no predation, and you’ve got all the anthropods you can possibly eat. These oddities are actually a natural part of what life on Earth does. …

“For humans, our ingenuity was our intelligence, for all of its costs and all of its negatives. It will be ingenuity – in renewable energy sources and other forms of technology – that will enable us to live sustainably on this planet. …

“There’s this comfort that I get from thinking in deep time – not in political, five-year slots, but thinking beyond a human lifespan. What’s going to come next? Perhaps life will be more symbiotic because we have been so extractive. It’s a spectrum of hope that I have. I think we can, we have to, live more sustainably. But even if we don’t, life will adapt.”

More at the Monitor, here.

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New in the Adirondacks

January 16, 2026 by suzannesmom

Art: Michael Francis Reagan.
Adirondack Park covers one-fifth of New York State — larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and many other national parks combined. It differs from those national parks, says the Nature Conservancy, in that it combines existing towns, businesses, recreation, and wilderness.  

When I was very young, I used to visit a great aunt who had a “camp” in New York State’s beautiful Adirondacks. It’s all coming back to me as I read Ginger Strand’s article in the Nature Conservancy magazine.

She begins by describing a meeting she had with scientists at Follensby Pond.

“This place served as timberland for over a hundred years and was privately owned by different families, but it still has a primeval feel … a unique, interlinked landscape of forest, streams, wetlands and rare silver maple floodplains. In 2008, The Nature Conservancy bought this vast parcel of land from the estate of the former owner. In addition to Follensby Pond, the 14,600-acre property includes 10 miles along the Raquette River, a prime paddling waterway that makes up part of the longest inland water trail in the United States. …

“It was widely expected that TNC would sell the land to the state of New York. Instead, to the surprise of everyone, including itself, TNC concluded that the property needed a special level of management and protection, and kept it. In 2024 the Nature Conservancy sold two conservation easements to the state. The easements opened part of the parcel to recreational access and designated the rest of it as a freshwater research preserve with managed public access. …

“The 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, covering one-fifth of New York state, is the largest park in the lower 48 states. But it differs from national parks, like Yellowstone or Yosemite, and state parks, which are typically set aside for recreation or wildlife. Managed by two state agencies, the park has no gates or entry fees, and it’s peppered with small towns, farms, timberlands, businesses, and hunting camps, all nestled among forests, mountains, rivers, and lakes. All told it is one of the largest tracts of protected wilderness east of the Mississippi, and if it had a heart, it would be right about at Follensby Pond.

“Follensby Pond is not really a pond, but rather a 102-foot-deep lake slightly larger than Central Park. For the local Haudenosaunee and Abenaki, it was a hunting area, accessed via canoe routes that traversed the Raquette River, the historic ‘highway of the Adirondacks.’ … Tourists sought it out until the 1890s, when a timber company bought the land. In private hands, it became a family retreat as well as timberland. …

“In 2008, the Nature Conservancy closed on the Follensby property. Just about everyone expected the organization to sell it to New York state to become part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve. But with the economy entering a recession, the state had no funds to buy another big parcel. Under no time pressure to transfer the land, TNC began studying it. …

“To start, TNC hosted a ‘bioblitz,’ bringing 50 scientists — geologists, soil scientists, ecologists, fish experts — onto the land to survey its flora and fauna. What the science showed was that this property wasn’t just historically vaunted; it was ecologically significant. The lake in particular held a ‘functioning ecosystem that is almost as intact as they come,’ says Michelle Brown [Michelle Brown, a senior conservation scientist for TNC in New York]. …

“This lake harbors a population of freshwater lake trout. And not just any lake trout — ‘old-growth’ lake trout, according to past research led by McGill University. Because of the minimal fishing at Follensby, the trout have been able to grow older than similar trout might in other lakes. …

“The trout’s length here can reach 2 to 3 feet; the record one here weighed 31 pounds. That’s a prized quarry for someone who has been obsessed with fishing since he was four. Yet [Dirk Bryant, who directs land conservation for TNC in New York] loves the idea of keeping the pond and these fish protected.

” ‘The hardest thing for me as an angler was to learn to think differently. … But we’re thinking about our fisheries in climate change. The lake trout is our timber wolf, our apex predator.’ Now, he says, many of the lakes that used to have the trout don’t have them anymore.

“In fact, a 2024 study found that soon only 5% of the lakes in the Adirondacks will be capable of supporting native populations of trout. … Follensby Pond is one of a rare few cool enough and healthy enough to support lake trout. …

“ ‘If you have some intact waters that can support native populations, those are the places that will support adaptation to climate change, as well as providing brood stock for restocking other waters,’ Bryant says. ‘You don’t hunt wolves in Yellowstone.’ …

“Still, when the ‘brain trust’ floated the idea of protecting the pond as a freshwater preserve, it was a surprise to many. … Paddling guidebooks in particular had been anticipating that the Follensby parcel would soon be accessible. The Adirondacks team looked for ways to balance protecting the lake with not turning the area into a conservation fortress.

“ ‘There were all these different needs: public access, Indigenous access, hunting clubs with leases, the fishery, the town,’ [Peg Olsen, TNC’s Adirondacks director] says. ‘We wanted to honor and respect all the stakeholders.’

“They landed on a compromise. The conservation easements sold to New York state create two distinct areas on the Follensby property. On nearly 6,000 acres along 10 miles of the Raquette River, one easement creates new public access for hiking, paddling, camping, hunting and fishing. The other easement protects a nearly 9,000-acre section around Follensby Pond as a freshwater research preserve, guided by a public-private consortium, to collaborate on research and preserve the lake’s unique ecosystem. While making Follensby a living laboratory, it also provides for Indigenous access and managed public access aimed at education.

“Like the wider Adirondack Park, with its combination of private lands, active towns and protected wilderness areas, it, too, will be an ongoing experiment in balancing environmental preservation with human communities.”

Read more at the Nature Conservancy magazine, here.

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Using Art to Train the Attention

January 15, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Met Museum via Wikimedia Commons.

When a woman in Minneapolis died at the hands of government forces recently, I was impressed with a wise Twitter comment about how much you really have to look at something before speaking. @JeninYounesEsq began by saying, “I’m a former defense attorney and currently a civil liberties attorney with no political dog in this fight. I watched the video at least 10 times from different angles and at different speeds and waited to offer an opinion, which I still reserve the right to change if additional information changes the calculus.”

I thought about that when reading a Sarah Bahr “Times Insider” piece at the New York Times. It’s about how we all can train ourselves to notice more.

Bahr says, “When the New York Times reporters Larry Buchanan and Francesca Paris read about a Harvard art history professor who directed her students to spend three hours looking at a painting or a sculpture of their choice, they were intrigued. The assignment was designed to force students to slow down, to really focus on what is in front of them.

“So, Mr. Buchanan and Ms. Paris, who work on [the Times] Upshot desk, wondered: Could they recreate this experience virtually for Times readers?

“ ‘That is the hope of the series: Can we train you to focus? Can we help you think about these things in slightly different ways?’ said Mr. Buchanan, who has a fine arts background and whose work often explores the intersection of art and journalism.

“The first edition in the series titled ‘Test Your Focus: Can You Spend 10 Minutes With One Painting?‘ was published in July of [2024] — and readers, it turned out, were up for the challenge. One in four readers stuck with that painting, James Whistler’s 1871 ‘Nocturne in Blue and Silver,’ for the full 10 minutes — or, at least, kept it open in their browsers.

” ‘Giving readers a small but mighty reminder that you can slow down is a pretty powerful thing,’ Mr. Buchanan said of the more than 750,000 readers who spent some quality time with Whistler. ‘We were surprised how many people stayed.’ (The highest success rate of the series to date, he said, has been one of the Unicorn Tapestries from the late Middle Ages.)

“Each new installment in the series, which arrives on the first Monday of each month in the inboxes of newsletter subscribers and also appears online, draws from a mix of well-known and lesser-known work. Past challenges have included an Indian painting made in the foothills of the Himalayas in the early 1800s; Pieter Bruegel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow‘; and Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night.’ … The most recent edition features the Dutch artist Margareta Haverman’s ‘A Vase of Flowers.’

“Mr. Buchanan, Ms. Paris and Nico Chilla, a graphics multimedia editor at the Times who produces the interactive elements of the series, introduced their first abstract work in April: Lee Krasner’s ‘The Seasons.‘ A technical glitch meant that some readers initially saw a blue square for 10 minutes, but many stuck with the exercise anyway.

“After producing the series’s initial Whistler piece, Mr. Chilla, who has a background in digital design, worked with Mr. Buchanan and Ms. Paris to solicit feedback from readers about their experiences.

“ ‘The time was visible always in the first one, and people didn’t like that,’ he said of the on-screen timer, which they removed after the first challenge. ‘And we initially had a few prompts for how to look at the artwork, but a lot of people complained: “The words are getting in my way.” ‘ …

“Though the pieces offer ultraclose zoom capability, overall, they are purposefully free of distraction.

“ ‘We really want simplicity — just you and the image,’ said Mr. Buchanan, adding that the team had vetoed developing a challenge around a sculpture (for now), fearing that the 360-degree viewing experience required to fully take it in would be too distracting.

“For the team that works on the series, the project has been an enlightening experience. Mr. Buchanan said he had begun noticing subtle things in his own life, like how cracks zigzag across the sidewalk, or the way light hits the water, or the way a plant is squeezed against a rock. …

“Ms. Paris, who proudly proclaims herself the ‘art newbie’ on the team, adopted the exercise in real life, spending an hour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Théodore Géricault’s 1818 painting ‘Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct.’

“ ‘It was a great hour,’ she said. ‘I like to think it’s made me linger a little longer with art and nature. It’s not life-changing, but I’ve never regretted the extra time I spent looking.’ …

“Readers’ comments have also been gratifying, Mr. Buchanan said. One man even devised his own version of the challenge: Look at a single piece of art for a total of 100 hours. He sends Mr. Buchanan periodic updates about his quest via email.

“ ‘I love that this has taken on a life of its own,’ Mr. Buchanan said.” More at the Times, here.

Would you want to try this, too? Maybe at a blog that has great art or photos. Rebecca at https://fakeflamenco.com/, for example, often does intriguing things with her camera. And Artist Meredith Fife Day has looked carefully for hours at the ficus she has painted in all its moods.

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Seafaring and the Human Brain

January 14, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Chewy C. Lin.
Ken Daniel, a Marshallese sailor, wears brain-recording equipment aboard a research vessel in the South Pacific.

A cool thing about scientific research today is the increased outreach to indigenous people for help with mysteries that others know little about.

Alexa Robles-Gil writes at the New York Times, about one such effort.

“When leaving an atoll of the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific, Alson Kelen prefers to sail after sunset. It’s like navigating with his eyes closed — allowing him to feel the up, down and sideways movement of every swell. ‘That’s how the Marshallese navigate,’ he said. ‘They navigate with their stomach.’

“For thousands of years, Marshallese navigators used traditional wave-piloting techniques to travel vast expanses of ocean. Wave piloting is the art of feeling and reading the swells and waves that hit and emanate from the region’s atolls. After a lifetime of studying these and other patterns, navigators pass a test devised by their chiefs to become a ri meto, or person of the sea.

“In the mid-1940s through the 1950s, nuclear testing by the American military displaced some Indigenous populations of the Marshalls. The ancient and sacred art of wave piloting was kept alive by a small group of people, among them Capt. Korent Joel, one of the last known experts in traditional navigation, who trained his younger cousin, Mr. Kelen. Captain Joel died in 2017.

“In early August, a team of international researchers, along with Marshallese sailors, set sail on a two-day voyage to study the cognitive process of way-finding at sea — and, more broadly, to help preserve the ancient art of navigation, which is having a cultural revival in the Pacific islands. Maria Ahmad, a Ph.D. student in cognitive neuroscience at University College London, devised the project after living on the Marshalls for many years. …

“Humans find their way across cities and forests by relying on visual landmarks. But the ocean, an ever-changing environment with no fixed visual markers, presents a more complex — and higher-stakes — challenge for the brain.

“A decade ago, researchers on a similar voyage documented Mr. Kelen’s understanding of the ocean as he sailed from one atoll, Majuro, to another, Aur, on a traditional Marshallese sailing canoe. The goal was to begin to understand how wave pilots successfully make their way from one destination to another despite the complexities of fluid dynamics. On board were an anthropologist, a physicist and an oceanographer, but no neuroscientists.

“This time around, the researchers hoped to answer more cognitive questions: How do people know where they are at sea? And how can that skill set be preserved? The crew comprised neuroscientists, a philosopher, a Marshallese anthropologist and two Marshallese sailors. Every 30 minutes, the people aboard the vessel had to draw their location, or at least where they thought they were, on a map — including the direction that the waves seemed to be coming from. …

“ ‘What is it that they are getting right over the rest of us?’ said Hugo Spiers, a neuroscientist at University College London who has studied navigation for more than two decades and was among the passengers. …

“Also on board were hundreds of pounds of technology: accelerometers to measure the boat’s speed; a watch on everyone’s wrist to measure heart rate; eye-tracking technology, to document where people were gazing; equipment to record brain activity relative to swell movement; a mounted 360-degree camera that captured changes in the sails and clouds; and more.

“In earlier research, Pablo Fernandez Velasco, a philosopher at the University of Stirling in Scotland, spent months in Siberia studying the Evenki people. … Dr. Fernandez Velasco has also collaborated with Dr. Spiers to study the brains of London taxi drivers, revealing just how efficiently they can plan routes. …

“The findings from the Marshall Islands voyage could also have implications for the study and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, the researchers said. With Alzheimer’s, the hippocampus becomes smaller over time, and disorientation is an early symptom.

“That research could benefit residents of the Pacific islands, where there is a high incidence of Alzheimer’s but little public awareness. … Explaining the disease requires complex translation, added Jerolynn Neikeke Myazoe, an anthropologist and translator on the voyage: ‘We don’t really have a specific word for it.’

“Although the project is still in the early stages of processing data, Mr. Kelen, who leads a canoe and sailing school in the Marshalls, finds the project promising for the Marshallese. ‘The most relevant thing to do is look back on how our ancestors survived on these rocks,’ he said. ‘This is the only weapon we have — our tradition, our culture. He added: ‘A navigator is a culture-keeper of the ocean.’ ”

More at the Times, here. Great pictures. (A tip of the hat to Hannah for the link!)

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Norwegian Ballet Tackles Indigenous Topic

January 13, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: David B Torch.
Recently the Norwegian National Ballet tackled the delicate subject of a 19th century rebellion by the indigenous Sami people. The non-Sami dancers wondered if they had the right to tell the story.

Indigenous reindeer herders called the Sami have a presence in the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia — and the sort of history indigenous people have experienced around the world. Was the Norwegian National Ballet reckless in trying to bring a 19th century Sami rebellion to life using non-Sami dancers?

Lisa Abend wrote at the New York Times in November, “Far in the north of Norway, a test of sorts was underway. Two weeks earlier, the ballet ‘Lahppon/Lost‘ had premiered at the Opera House in Oslo. Created by a Sami artist about a Sami uprising, and danced by the Norwegian National Ballet, the work had opened to largely positive reviews. But last Friday, ‘Lahppon/Lost started a two-night run in Kautokeino, a cultural capital for the Indigenous Sami people and the very town where the rebellion it depicts took place.

“ ‘The audience was five times bigger in Oslo, but I was more nervous here,’ said the creator and co-choreographer of ‘Lahppon/Lost,’ Elle Sofe Sara, whose ancestors participated in the uprising. ‘I knew that so many descendants of the rebellion would be there, and … I was asking myself: “Have we done it in a good way?” ‘ …

“When the work premiered at the Opera House on Oct. 31, it was the first time a piece by a Sami choreographer had been presented on the main stage. It was also part of a recent wave of commissions from leading arts institutions that have recognized Norway’s long history of forced assimilation of and discrimination against the Indigenous group, which is widely considered Europe’s oldest. …

“For Ingrid Lorentzen, the Norwegian National Ballet’s artistic director, who commissioned the work, and for the company’s dancers, none of whom are Sami, the performance raised questions about whether they had the right to tell the story. …

“Said Lorentzen, ‘Are we again stepping over the voices that we are trying to create space for?’ …

“For the Sami, the Kautokeino rebellion remains a sensitive subject. During the 1852 uprising, Sami followers of a strict Christian sect attacked Norwegian authorities, including the local sheriff and priest. … In the aftermath, church and state stepped up their efforts to ‘Norwegianize’ the Indigenous group, which continued into the 1960s.

“For well over a century, the rebellion was shrouded in shame among the Sami. But a political and cultural awakening in the 1970s prompted a gradual re-evaluation, and today the causes and meaning of the Kautokeino uprising are contested, with some viewing it as an example of religious fanaticism and others considering it an early Indigenous rejection of the authorities’ ongoing suppression of Sami rights and culture.

“Among the predominantly Indigenous audience that filled the seats of Kautokeino’s Sami National Theater, several attendees confessed to pre-curtain anxiety . … ‘I was so nervous,’ said Ayla Nutti, 20. ‘I was worried they wouldn’t get it right.’

“It was precisely the uprising’s complexity that drew Sara to the story. From her research, she knew that the episode still carried a heavy emotional burden. ‘We did interviews with descendants, and some of them didn’t want to talk about it, or they would talk and then tell us to delete the conversation,’ she said. …

“The dancing in ‘Lahppon/Lost’ is intensely physical, and much of it was devised by Sara’s collaborator, the Icelandic choreographer Hlin Hjalmarsdottir. The dancers whip the ground with fury and twist their bodies with an energy that oscillates between tortured and ecstatic. Combined with video close-ups of the dancers’ faces, and striking costumes from the Danish designer Henrik Vibskov, the muscular movement gives ‘Lahppon/Lost’ a contemporary feel.

“Yet the work remains thoroughly Sami. Much of that character can be attributed to Lavre Johan Eira, who performs a Sami form of throat singing called joiking that is believed to convey the living essence of its subject. ‘Lahppon/Lost’ opens with Eira’s haunting version of a joik. …

“By all accounts — and two standing ovations — they succeeded. ‘Sometimes when you see non-Sami dancers, there is a distance between them and the Sami stories,’ said Kristin Solberg, the director of a Sami theater in Mo i Rana, Norway. ‘But these dancers embodied them and gave movement to the land. I felt like I was watching my story.’

“[Reindeer herder] Sokki found himself in tears. ‘It didn’t matter that the dancers weren’t Sami,’ he said. ‘They made the rebellion come closer. It was magic.’

“In the intimate space of the Kautokeino theater, the performers felt that magic, too. And it didn’t end with the curtain. As they stepped outside after the final show, the Northern Lights were casting swirling bands of luminescence against the night sky. ‘It’s the perfect ending,’ said [dancer] de Block. ‘We released the spirits tonight.’ ”

More at the Times, here. Lots of great little videos.

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Exploring Weightless Choreography

January 12, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Martin Nuñez-Bonilla.
Sasha Peterson and Michael Figueroa in “Slapstuck” at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces last June.

Usually it’s people with science backgrounds who go into space. But artists are curious about everything, as we know, and some wonder what their own role in space travel might be. Some dance artists who have looked seriously into the possibilities of weightless choreography are now starting to rethink the ramifications.

Chava Pearl Lansky writes at Dance Magazine, “In a performance at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces [CRCI] this past June, Sasha Peterson leaned the side of her body onto Michael Figueroa’s shoulders, sharing weight in a traditional contact-improvisational lift. But rather than disembark back to the floor, Peterson rolled down Figueroa’s back — and stayed there, her body perpendicular to his, suspended in space.

“How? The answer in this case was Velcro-covered suits, lent by choreographer David Parker, who created ‘Slapstuck.’ … Velcro is just one form of technology that dancers are using to simulate the effects of weightlessness here on Earth. But for some, the end goal is to experience a true lack of gravity by bringing dance to space.

“ ‘Dance in zero gravity completely transforms how we think about choreography and performance,’ says Sydney Skybetter, the founder of CRCI and director of the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University. ‘When you remove the floor, which is the fundamental organizing principle of terrestrial dance, bodies become three-dimensional sculptures moving through space multi-axially.’ …

“There are a number of ways to simulate dance without gravity here on Earth, and dancemakers are experimenting with several of them. Last March, Peterson, Figueroa, and fellow dance artists Laila Franklin and Kate Gow came together for CRCI’s Movement in Microgravity residency, in which they created a base dance phrase and tested it in environments with varying gravitational relationships. In addition to working with Velcro suits, the group ventured to a trampoline park, an anti-gravity yoga class, float tanks, a pool, and a spatial-orientation laboratory. …

“Some dancers are interested not in bringing codified dance steps into space, but in taking the gravity out of a gravity-based practice. In 2022, dancer, geologist, and planetary scientist C. Adeene Denton wrote an essay in this magazine about her dream of dancing on the International Space Station. She’s spent a great deal of time both watching and speaking with astronauts and has enjoyed learning about the movements in microgravity that these experts already find fun.

” ‘What they like to do in their spare time is to try to crank up the momentum and shoot themselves through different passageways, or figure out different ways that they can spin,’ she says. Denton is also fascinated by effort. Astronauts living on the ISS, for example, learn how much energy they need to exert just to stay put. In order to stay still to work or eat, they grip a railing with just one or two toes.

“When she imagines what it would be like to dance on the ISS, Denton dreams about dueting with the space station itself. ‘Astronauts there are constantly drifting and following the motion of the space station as it orbits the Earth,’ she says. ‘So, I think it could be really interesting to try to do the microgravity equivalent of standing in one place.’

“[Multidisciplinary artist Sage Ni’Ja] Whitson is now beginning research in aerial performance techniques, with a goal of continuing their research via parabolic flight — the closest thing to space travel currently available on Earth — and, eventually, actual space travel. …

“[But now] the dancers are questioning the cost of parabolic flights, where dedicated research space can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and some artists have expressed concern over the privatization of space travel by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. ‘Right now, space exploration is being shaped by people with some extremely problematic ideological stances,” says Skybetter.

“[Denton adds] ‘I would still love to dance in microgravity, but I think that is ultimately kind of a selfish dream that needs to be superseded by doing the kinds of good things on Earth that we can do.’ “

More at Dance Magazine, here.

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An Israeli Orchestra Universally Welcomed

January 11, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Chris Leee.
Saleem Ashkar conducted the Galilee Chamber Orchestra last November at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra has equal numbers of Arab and Jewish musicians.

Looking for a bright spot in the frightening new world order? No need to go farther that the Galilee Chamber Orchestra and the reasons why people of good will were determined to make music with equal numbers of supposedly hostile tribes.

David Patrick Stearns wrote at the Philadelphia Inquirer last fall, “On the face of it, the Galilee Chamber Orchestra could be an impossible meeting of musical minds.

“Comprising ‘equal numbers of both Jewish and Arab musicians,’ as its website notes, the orchestra has a 13-year history, and is now on a high-prestige tour with celebrated pianist Bruce Liu that includes the Kimmel Center on Nov. 19 and New York’s Carnegie Hall Nov 20.

“Based in Nazareth (known as the ‘Arab capital of Israel’), the orchestra’s common ground on this tour includes Mozart among other composers whose nationalities, from centuries past, now feel like neutral territory — while still speaking to the present.

“ ‘Classical music has become something that belongs to the world. If you go to Japan or Brazil, they feel that Mozart and Beethoven belong to them as much as anybody else.’ … said Nabeel Abboud-Ashkar, executive director of Polyphony Education, the conservatory where the orchestra is based. ‘Once you’re part of this cultural world, you instantly connect with so many people.’ …

“With that kind of mandate, it’s no surprise that the orchestra, in its last U.S. tour in 2022, was acclaimed for generating more sound than a typical chamber orchestra. This year, its 42 players draw from Polyphony students, faculty, graduates, and nearby professionals.

“Structurally, the conservatory/orchestra setup resembles Venezuela’s much larger El Sistema but also is meant to have an ethnicity mixture more like the Spain-based West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Galilee Chamber Orchestra is firmly planted in its Jewish/Arab balance and in Israel, a country with a 20% Arab population.

“The tour program includes the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 with Paris-born, Montreal-raised pianist Liu, a 2021 winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition. The presence of Symphony No. 3 (‘Scotch’) by the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn isn’t meant to make a statement but is a piece the orchestra has wanted to do for a few years.

“Also, Abboud-Ashkar’s brother Saleem Ashkar, conductor of the tour, has considerable history with the composer, having also been the soloist in both piano concertos in a well-received, major-label recording with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

“More intentional is the inclusion of Nocturnal Whispers by Arab composer Nizar Elkhater, whose own Israel-based ensemble, named Abaad, seeks to fuse Western and Eastern musical styles

“The orchestra’s concerts haven’t been subject to the kinds of in-concert interruptions and demonstrations that have greeted the Israel Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Quartet in Europe and the U.S.

“But years of war, however, have strained the orchestra and conservatory in tangible ways. Planning is more provisional than ever. Concerts can be canceled on short notice, lessons planned to be in-person can suddenly switch to online, getting home from a European tour can be impeded and delayed by new conflict outbreaks in the Middle East.

“Among the musicians, tensions are heightened by constantly seesawing events, said Abboud-Ashkar. After the attack of Oct. 7, 2023, the whole operation was suddenly in unfamiliar territory, he said. …

“ ‘We feel everything that is happening around us,’ Abboud-Ashkar said in a Zoom interview from Nazareth. ‘Some people might think we’re being naive and ask … “How can you talk about collaboration and partnership being equal … with horrific things happening in Gaza?” …

‘We believe that what we’re doing has an impact. Even if it’s just making it a little better, we’re moving the needle in the right direction.’

“The main enemy may well be despair. Within the orchestra and conservatory, lack of hope for war resolution can turn into loss of musical motivation.

“ ‘On the other hand, there are cases where people show incredible empathy for others,’ said Abboud-Ashkar. ‘There’s a commitment to having this (musical) dialogue … and having more consideration for each other. When you’re in distress … you’re motivated to continue and to always find a way. You fight for your space and your values and hope there are still enough people out there who shared them. We’re going to stay together because this is what we believe in.’ ”

I am so touched by this idea of moving “the needle a little in the right direction.” That is all any of us can do, but we really must do it in order for all the little bits to add up. More at the Inquirer, here.

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Harlem’s Studio Art Museum Reopened

January 10, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photos: Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic.
A light well at the recently reopened Studio Art Museum in Harlem.

Suzanne and Erik lived in Harlem before they moved to Rhode Island. They loved their apartment, and they loved being able to enjoy so many of the things New York City has to offer. One of the attractions of Harlem itself was the Studio Art Museum, which now has an impressive new building, after being closed from 2018 to 2025.

Isa Farfan writes at the art magazine Hyperallergic, “The Studio Museum in Harlem has a new, stunning home.  The 57-year-old New York institution, dedicated to artists of African descent, [has] inaugurated its new building. …

“Founded by a group of artists and activists, the museum closed its 125th Street location in 2018 to undergo construction of a new building, the first specifically created for the arts institution. The Studio Museum originally opened at a site on Fifth Avenue before moving to its current home on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the 1980s, the former New York Bank of Savings building. The striking 82,000-square-foot (~7,618-square-meter) new building at the same site was designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson. …

” ‘I have truly missed having our physical space,’ Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden told Hyperallergic. ‘In the years we’ve been closed, our visitors, friends, members, and artists have made it known how much they miss us; everywhere I go.’

“The museum is debuting a series of inaugural exhibitions, including ‘Tom Lloyd,’ a one-gallery career survey of the artist-activist’s flashing light sculptures. Works from the museum’s approximately 9,000-item collection span three galleries as part of the exhibition ‘From Now: A Collection in Context,’ which will feature a rotating display.

“Though the construction was delayed in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Studio Museum Curator Connie Choi told Hyperallergic that the extended timeline gave the institution a chance to look deeper within itself.

” ‘It allowed us the opportunity to do a deep dive into understanding our collection holdings, to do research, conservation, and framing,’ Choi said. ‘We’ve also done a deep dive into our institutional history in a way that we haven’t been able to do before.’

” ‘We thought very hard about how to be present while closed,’ Golden added. During its seven-year closure, the institution launched several collaborations, including the traveling exhibition ‘Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum.’ …

“Choi said she’s most excited about the Lloyd survey, noting that he was the first artist to participate in the museum’s studio program.

” ‘It’s a space of contemplation, even as the works themselves are blinking and exciting,’ Choi said. ‘We are hoping that people can slow down; they are coming off of 125th street, which is the busiest street in Harlem, into a space that allows a moment of rest and respite and contemplation of artwork.’ “

More at Hyperallergic, here. The photos of the new building really make me want to see it.

Elizabeth Catlett’s “Mother and Child” (1993) on display in “From Now: A Collection in Context” at the Studio Art Museum.


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Bob Ross Art Breaks Records

January 9, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Bob Ross Inc./AP.
The late Bob Ross encouraged millions of Americans to make and appreciate art through his show The Joy of Painting, which has aired on PBS stations since 1983.

I once got an art kit from public broadcasting painter Bob Ross for my older granddaughter, a big fan. She was happy with the kit, but she did admit later that Ross made everything look easier on television than it really was.

Now we know that many other people not only liked Ross’s art, but want to support the medium where it was presented.

Rachel Treisman writes at National Public Radio (NPR), “The first of 30 Bob Ross paintings — many of them created live on the PBS series that made him a household name — have been auctioned off to support public television.

“Ross, with his distinctive afro, soothing voice and sunny outlook, empowered millions of viewers to make and appreciate art through his show The Joy of Painting. More than 400 half-hour episodes aired on PBS (and eventually the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) from 1983 to 1994, the year before Ross died of cancer at age 52. …

“His show still airs on PBS and streams on platforms like Hulu and Twitch. It has surged in popularity in recent years, particularly as viewers searched for comfort during COVID-19 lockdowns. … But his artwork rarely goes up for sale — until recently.

“In October, the nonprofit syndicator American Public Television (APT) announced it would auction off 30 of Ross’ paintings to raise money for public broadcasters hit by federal funding cuts. It pledged to direct 100% of its net sales proceeds to APT and PBS stations nationwide. Auction house Bonhams is calling it the ‘largest single offering of Bob Ross original works ever brought to market.’ …

“The first three paintings sold in Los Angeles on Nov. 11. for a record-shattering $662,000. Bonhams says the works attracted hundreds of registrations, more than twice the usual number for that type of sale. …

“Said Robin Starr, the general manager of Bonhams Skinner, the auction house’s Massachusetts branch, ‘These successes provide a solid foundation as we look ahead to 2026 and prepare to present the next group of Bob Ross works.’

“The next trio of paintings will be auctioned in Massachusetts in late January. The rest will be sold throughout 2026 at Bonham’s salesrooms in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. …

“Congress voted in July to claw back $1.1 billion in previously allocated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), leaving the country’s roughly 330 PBS and 244 NPR stations in a precarious position.

“CPB began shutting down at the end of September … and several local TV and radio stations have also announced layoffs and closures.

” ‘I think he would be very disappointed’ about the CPB cuts, [Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross, Inc.] said of Ross. … I think this would have probably been his idea.” Kowalski, whose parents founded Bob Ross Inc. together with the painter in 1985, said Ross favored positive activism over destructive or empty rhetoric. …

“The Ross auction aims to help stations pay their licensing fees to the national TV channel Create, which in turn allows them to air popular public television programs. … Bonhams says the auction proceeds will help stations — particularly smaller and rural ones — defray the cost burden of licensing fees, making Create available to more of them. …

“The 30 paintings going up for sale span Ross’ career … include vibrant landscapes, with the serene mountains, lake views and ‘happy trees’ that became his trademark.

“Ross started painting during his 20-year career in the Air Force, much of which was spent in Alaska. That experience shaped his penchant for landscapes and ability to work quickly — and, he later said, his desire not to raise his voice once out of the service.

“Once on the airwaves, Ross’ soft-spoken guidance and gentle demeanor won over millions of viewers. His advice applied to art as well as life: Mistakes are just ‘happy accidents, talent is a ‘pursued interest,’ and it’s important to ‘take a step back and look.’ …

“In August [before any talk of a public television fundraiser] Bonhams sold two of Ross’ early 1990s mountain and lake scenes as part of an online auction of American art. They fetched $114,800 and $95,750, surpassing expectations and setting a new auction world record for Ross at the time. Kowalski says that’s when her gears started turning.

” ‘And it just got me to thinking, that’s a substantial amount of money,’ she recalled. ‘And what if, what if, what if?’ “

More at NPR, here. A few days ago funder CPB announced it was shutting down. But, by hook or by crook, public tv will carry on.

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Nomadic Kids Meet Technology

January 8, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Arsalan Bukhari/EGAB.
Nomadic young people attend a computer class in a tent in the Kashmiri mountains.

Whatever we may think nowadays about technology going too far, it’s such a big part of life that it would be unfair to leave anyone who is interested out of it. And judging from today’s story, Nomadic children in Kashmir are definitely interested.

Arsalan Bukhari at the Christian Science Monitor describes recent efforts to help these young people get up to speed on computers.

“Fifteen-year-old Shabaz Ali keeps one eye on his wristwatch and the other on the dirt path winding through a meadow in his highland town, Tangmarg.

“ ‘Three, two, one. It’s 5 o’clock!’ he calls out. ‘Where’s Shabir?’

“For members of the nomadic Bakarwal communities in Indian-administered Kashmir, timekeeping means survival. Children like Shabaz earn hourly wages for shepherding animals, gathering firewood, or loading trucks with goods for sale.

“Today, Shabaz isn’t tracking time for wages. A rumble echoes through the valley. … Shabir Khatana, Shabaz’s friend who runs a shop in town, pulls up on an old red motorcycle. Shabaz snatches up Mr. Khatana’s cellphone – their shared lifeline – and dashes into the Ali family’s large tent.

“The internet connection is strongest in the back corner, so Shabaz crouches there and opens the Zoom app. Aamir Sir, a volunteer mentor from the city of Srinagar, some 55 kilometers (35 miles) away, is waiting onscreen to teach animation and video editing to Shabaz and other students. …

“For generations, education has been a distant dream for the tribal Bakarwal families who migrate with livestock between summer pastures and winter shelters. … Most Bakarwal children, especially girls, grow up herding animals, working as dishwashers, or begging on streets.

“But since mid-2024, an initiative led by urban young people across India has begun connecting Bakarwal children to digital training in animation, coding, and web design. It’s about more than education; it’s about fulfilling the children’s ambitions, developing their confidence, and in some cases, generating income for their families.

“The transformation began when Zubair Lone, who recently graduated from college in Chandigarh, saw Bakarwal children washing dishes at his sister’s wedding.

“ ‘Little children, some no older than 7, were cleaning up the wedding venue,’ he recalls. ‘When I spoke with them, they told me something that stunned me: This was continuous. Both boys and girls saw working in people’s homes as just life. … That night, I called my friends and said, “If we don’t do this, no one will.” ‘

“He reached out to nearly 18 people, forming a group committed to change through volunteer work. ‘God has given us so much in terms of money and information,’ he told them. ‘Our one or two hours a day can mean a lot for someone.’

“The group, called Sukoon Digital, now has 14 active volunteers. … They include computer science students as well as graphic designers and other professionals who run digital training sessions across nomadic settlements in Baramulla, Budgam, and Kupwara districts.

“The first week of classes, the challenge seemed overwhelming to Mr. Lone. … ‘I have to start from the very beginning,’ Mr. Lone says. …

“The concept is straightforward: Children borrow smartphones from shops, siblings, or Sukoon’s volunteer teachers, and then join Zoom sessions in which mentors guide them through designing websites, creating digital artwork, and even setting up freelancer profiles. Classes are held on weekends and evenings, after the children’s work tasks are complete.

“Seventeen-year-old Bilquees Jan used to spend her days tending sheep and decorating mud walls with floral patterns. ‘I thought I’d never do anything beyond making tea and applying henna,’ she says.

“After more than 35 Sukoon sessions on graphic design, she has begun taking freelance orders, including to create social media ads for a Srinagar-based café. Her instructor, Afifa Qadri, teaches remotely from Mumbai’s rural outskirts, sometimes on patchy networks powered by solar panels.

“ ‘There’s something incredibly powerful about watching a girl who never saw a computer start using [design tools] Canva or Figma,’ says Ms. Qadri. …

“Another success story is 19-year-old Zahid Ahmed, who creates short cartoons on YouTube featuring village jokes, stories about nomadic life, and videos promoting safety. In 12 months, Zahid says, he has earned more than $1,000 from freelance work and ad revenue. (A typical Bakarwal family’s annual income ranges between $600 and $800.) …

“While helping children earn money motivates participation, volunteers focus on the children’s sense of their own possibilities.

“ ‘The idea of a career beyond labor doesn’t exist when you live your entire life on the move,’ says Mr. Sir, the volunteer in Srinagar, who makes a living teaching social media marketing. ‘Our goal is to change that perspective – to convey that you are important and your creativity is valuable.’ “

More at the Monitor, here.

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Saving New Deal Murals

January 7, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
“The Wealth of the Nation,” by Seymour Fogel, 1942, located in the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, Washington, DC.

I’m a huge fan of the giant New Deal murals that gave brilliant artists work to do in lean times. I suppose the art has always been in danger of being covered over or removed as post offices and other public building have been remodeled. But right now the danger seems to be coming from the federal government’s current push to rewrite history.

Gray Brechin writes at the Living New Deal website that the federal government aims to sell the “Sistine Chapel” of New Deal art.

The murals of Ben Shahn, Brechin says, “in the old Social Security Administration headquarters in Washington, DC, were a problem, a docent privately told me when I toured the building in 2012.

“The building, which faces the National Mall, was by then occupied by the Voice of America. Visitors from around the world made reservations to tour the building as had I. Some of Shahn’s murals, painted when the building opened in 1940, the guide told me, suggested to visitors that poverty and racism existed in the land of the free.

“But Shahn and other artists commissioned to embellish the building also showed how Roosevelt and Frances Perkins’ Social Security programs had not only alleviated those problems, but had distributed America’s abundance so as to give everyone, rather than a few, a richer and more secure life than they had known before the New Deal. 

“Shahn’s fresco series ‘The Meaning of Social Security,’ is the most prominent of the murals in the now renamed Wilbur J. Cohen Building. Other artworks also carry themes of security and American life, among them ‘The Security of the People’ and ‘Wealth of the Nation’ by Seymour Fogel, ‘Reconstruction and Well-Being of the Family,’ by Philip Guston and granite reliefs by Emma Lu Davis.  Some artworks were inaccessible when I toured the building.  

“With Voice of America workers abruptly evicted on March 15 of this year [2025] and the agency itself facing extinction, the public is now forbidden access to the building altogether. The current administration hopes to speedily dispose of it and three others in the vicinity by the end of the year. A buyer could demolish the building. … Planning guidelines, reviews and preservation itself matter little if at all.

“As Timothy Noah explains in the New Republic … the General Services Administration (GSA), which owns the Cohen Building has itself been gutted in the administration’s drive to, in Grover Norquist’s words, ‘drown the government in the bathtub.’

“That Shahn’s murals depict a harsh reality worried me well before the administration began editing displays and signage that cast a less than a flattering light on US history at the Smithsonian Museums, National Parks, and other federal institutions. That federal buildings could be sold wholesale also concerned me more than a decade ago when the US Postal Service began quietly disposing of historic post offices, many of them containing New Deal art. 

“One of those buildings, now in private hands, is the monumental Bronx General Post Office for which Ben Shahn and his wife Bernarda Bryson painted thirteen murals in 1937 depicting laboring Americans while Walt Whitman, painted at one end of the once-stately lobby, lectures those workers on their responsibility to democracy. Closed in 2013 and sold twice since then, the future of that structure, like the old Social Security Building, remains unclear, with development plans in the works.

“Once among America’s foremost painters, Ben Shahn’s artistic stock fell with the rise of abstract and pop art after World War II. Abstraction had little room for the kind of social realism in which Shahn and Bryson were masters.

“A recent exhibition at New York City’s Jewish Museum spanning Shahn’s career was testimony to Shahn’s lifelong concern for social justice and the issues addressed by the New Deal.

“Dr. Stephen Brown, a Jewish Museum curator, says that ‘Ben Shahn is one of the great American artists of the twentieth century who believed in the value of dissent and the essential function of art of a democratic society.’

“Himself an immigrant from Lithuania, Shahn’s two great mural cycles depicting his hopes for his adopted country are closed and off limits to the very public which paid for and ostensibly owns them. Gracing buildings that the present administration values only for the real estate beneath them, Shahn’s art and that of others … now face an uncertain future.”

Brechin adds that if anyone wants to help save the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, they may “sign and share the petition.” More at Living New Deal, here.

I have previously written about reviving hidden or forgotten New Deal murals — as in one post about Harlem, here.

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Lunar New Year Tradition Revived

January 6, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Gilles Sabrié for the Washington Post.
Members of the Xiaohexi Tongyi stilt-walking club in 2025.

According to the traditional Chinese calendar, this Lunar New Year, (also called Spring Festival) is the Year of the Horse, the Water Horse, to be exact.

Lunar New Year traditions go back hundreds of years, although in China they were forbidden during the Cultural Revolution. Nowadays the Chinese government loves them so much it has asked UNESCO to protect them as “intangible heritage.”

At the Washington Post, we learn about a newly revived aspect of the celebrations.

Last year at this time, Christian Shepherd reported, “The once-endangered folk tradition of stilt walking has staged a dramatic comeback in China, where it is being embraced by young performers eager to find community and preserve their heritage. …

“Its revival has also been helped along by Beijing’s efforts to encourage — and control — traditional art forms and spiritual practices as part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s push for ‘cultural confidence.’

“ ‘I have loved folk culture since I was a child,’ said Guo Wenmiao, a 20-year-old engineering undergraduate who is a big fan of the NBA and Nike kicks — and stilt walking. …

“Stilt walking is part of a folk tradition of performances, rooted in ancient Chinese belief systems such as Confucianism and Taoism, that have been used to mark festivals and celebrate local deities for hundreds of years.

“But these rituals of pilgrimage and prayer were effectively banned in China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, when the first leader of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, encouraged militant student ‘red guards’ to eradicate ‘old culture’ and superstition.

“Volunteer-run cultural associations are now reviving many of these suppressed traditions and passing them on to a new generation.

“Here in the countryside of northern China, people born this century are performing folk arts that date back at least 400 years — not least to provide distraction from economic uncertainties.

“Traditional theater, music and acrobatic performances are becoming popular at local ‘temple fairs’ and during national holidays such as Lunar New Year.

“At one festival last year on the outskirts of Tianjin to mark the birthday of Mazu, the sea goddess in Chinese folklore, crowds were wowed by fire breathers, cymbal jugglers and leaping kung fu fighters. … It was the stilt walkers, however, who stood out.

“Perched on meter-high wooden platforms in colorful outfits, wearing face paint and elaborate headdresses, they acted out folk tales to rhythmic drums and clashing gongs.

“The performers are amateurs, but they know how to put on a show. In one act, Guo … played a foppish princeling who becomes obsessed with catching an evasive butterfly.

“Before the Tianjin celebration, Guo and the other members of the Xiaohexi Tongyi stilt-walking club prepared to perform in their hometown of Shengfang, a small town an hour’s drive east of Tianjin.

“They play-fought one minute and applied makeup the next. A used-car salesman smoked a cigarette and complained about business before transforming himself into a rosy-cheeked matron — a comedic cross-gender role known as the ‘foolish mother.’

“All the performers were male, between age 10 and 35, and came from a variety of backgrounds. But all of them considered dressing up in elaborate costumes and dancing on stilts a perfectly unremarkable hobby.

“ ‘Joining the troupe is something that’s ingrained in everyone’ [said] Guo Tongkai, the 23-year-old lead performer, no relation to the butterfly chaser.

“Many of the performers began stilt walking when in primary school and regard themselves as ‘disciples’ of the art form.

“ ‘It’s a tradition passed down from our ancestors,’ said Guo Tongkai, who started learning to walk on stilts at the age of 5. ‘Everyone progresses and learns together.’ ”

More at the Post, here, where you can see some amazing photos and videos. And check out a Business Insider story on the dancing stilt-like robots in Beijing, here.

Photo: CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
Dancers — robot and human — performed in Beijing for last year’s spring festival. 

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Andrew Lloyd Weber Gets Edgy

January 5, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Oscar Ouk.
Kyle Scatliffe and Eryn LeCroy star in Masquerade, an off-Broadway reinterpretation of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera.

Everyone makes fun of the musical Cats these days, but there was a time before Andrew Llyod Weber made a musical out of TS Eliot’s poetry when Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was just playful in an intellectually clever way. I used to play an old record of it, spoken by acclaimed British actor Robert Donat (1905-1958), at Halloween every year.

When we heard that a musical version had been a success in London, we memorized the album and went to see the show in New York. Suzanne was five, John was ten, and we loved it.

Now that people have tired of cookie-cutter Cats productions, Lloyd Weber is starting to allow experiments.

“Two years ago,” Zachary Stewart writes at TheaterMania, “I marked the abrupt closing of Bad Cinderella with an overview of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s remarkable run as the most successful living musical-theater composer, writing, ‘Those of us under the age of 44 have never known a time in which Lloyd Webber didn’t have a presence on Broadway.’

“Evita, Cats, and (most notably) The Phantom of the Opera shaped the tastes of multiple generations of theatergoers by wedding catchy tunes to spectacular stagecraft — but most importantly, by touring relentlessly. A uniform vision (one production of Cats looked much like any other) created a globally recognized brand — the McDonalds of musical theater — earning piles of cash for Lloyd Webber and his investors.

“But that uniformity also bred artistic stagnation. I was disappointed by the last Broadway revival of Cats, which was just a remounting of the original. I suspected Lloyd Webber was too set in his ways to ever mess with a product that had proved so financially lucrative. And after Phantom closed, I was certain it would return in a form significantly diminished from the lavish Hal Prince production that lived in the Majestic Theatre from 1988 to 2023. But I was wrong on both counts.

“Story of the Week will look at two thrillingly reimagined ALW musicals playing New York this season and what they say about the experimental streak of a composer we think we have all figured out.

“[Off-Broadway] revival of The Phantom of the Opera [Masquerade] takes audiences inside the musical by transforming the old ASCE Society House on West 57th Street … into the Paris Opera. We arrive as guests of a masquerade gala but are quickly sucked into the drama surrounding young soprano Christine Daaé and the mysterious ‘opera ghost’ who has been secretly giving her music lessons, which we get to witness as we chase the Phantom and Christine down to his secret lair.

“It’s intoxicating to know that you’re participating in camp while still getting goosebumps all the same. That’s certainly how I felt as I clutched my little electric candle and descended the escalator accompanied by the title song, arriving in the basement just in time to witness the phantom steer his gondola past me on an invisible lake shrouded in stage fog. The whole event is like stepping inside a 1980s gothic fantasy. …

“Director Diane Paulus and her team have scrupulously designed every detail, from Emilio Sosa’s magnificently bejeweled costumes to the elegantly scripted handwriting of the Phantom’s threatening letters.

“An army of ‘butlers’ in white lace masks usher us through the space with care and precision. There was a woman in a wheelchair in my group, and a dedicated attendant ensured that she arrived on time to every scene, always with a good view of the action. My companion had to visit the bathroom shortly after ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’ (the show is two hours, no intermission), and a butler not only got him to a conveniently located facility,. … This is a Phantom to experience with all the senses as you feel the actors sweep past you and belt in your face.

“Six different actors play the Phantom, and six play Christine as different groups enter the space in stages, replicating the flow of a haunted house while recognizing the realities of a vocally challenging score. I had the pleasure of witnessing Kyle Scatliffe, whose intensity burns through the phantom mask as he makes direct eye contact with every guest. Eryn LeCroy’s powerful voice (as Christine) is still reverberating in my skull. But Maxfield Haynes’s performance as a young phantom will likely haunt me the longest. Silent and hunched in a cage in the corner of a freak show, his outstretched hand has the power to make you feel complicit in unspeakable cruelty. …

“In addition to being an opulent live-in spectacle, Masquerade persuasively makes the case that there is more to discover in Phantom, if only the creative team has the courage to lose sight of the shore. That is certainly something a different team of theatermakers discovered last year with a highly unusual staging of Cats.

“In the summer of 2024 at the new PAC NYC, directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch presented the world premiere of this new revival of Cats that reframes the dance-tastic feline death ritual as a drag ball, the kind documented by Jennie Livingston in her 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning.

“Yes, it’s a musical about singing, dancing cats — but what if those cats were also creatures of the night, scrappy survivors with nine lives and perhaps (in the case of Macavity) sticky paws? This unlikely synthesis proved unexpectedly poignant, but it was also a total delight. … I’m thrilled that the production will be transferring to Broadway this spring.

“Unlike Masquerade, the audience remains seated throughout, but the event still feels immersive as we are transported to a converted industrial warehouse in Harlem to witness the ball of the century. Off-Broadway, viewers clacked their fans and cheered on their favorite cats like they were professional wrestlers. Certainly, some of Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons’s choreography approaches the physical exertion one might witness at a WWE match, if the wrestlers were in heels. …

“If it works uptown, it will be in no small part due to the exhilarating performances of the actors transferring with the production, including a commanding André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, the subtly shady Junior LaBeija as Gus, and the undeniably sexy Sydney James Harcourt as Rum Tum Tugger. … Even if you think you hate Cats, The Jellicle Ball is likely to change your mind.”

Read about Lloyd Weber experiments going on in London. TheaterMania has it all here. (PS. I wrote several Boston-area reviews for TheaterMania years ago, when it was a new enterprise.)

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