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Enormous Egyptian Museum

January 23, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Grand Egyptian Museum via Galerie magazine.
Grand Staircase at the Grand Egyptian Museum, opened in 2025 after decades of work.

One thing that struck me when I read this article on the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum was that even though it took many years to build and the original architects left the project in 2014, “the building’s overall structure and dynamic has prevailed.” How many people who departed from such a massive project could say that?

Caroline Roux has a review at Galerie magazine.

“It takes a while to drive past the Great Egyptian Museum (GEM), which officially opened at the beginning of November, and runs alongside the busy main road from Giza to Cairo. As its soaring slanting facade — an elegant tessellation of triangles in stone and glass — comes into view, there’s plenty of time to snap a few pictures. The structure is a staggering 2,600 feet long.  

“Like the Great Pyramids, which stand majestically behind it on the Giza Plateau, the museum has also been constructed as a mighty treasure house for Egyptian artifacts. Designed to house 100,000 objects with 17 specialized laboratories dedicated to their conservation, GEM is the world’s largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilization.

“For the first time since their excavation in 1923, all 5,000 objects taken from Tutankhamun’s tomb are reunited here. Among them is the king’s iconic gold mask, with its decoration in blue and black, that has endured as the de facto symbol of ancient Egyptian civilization. In the grand entrance hall presides the 3,200-year-old statue of Rameses II, which stands 36 feet high and is carved from 83 tons of ancient red granite. The entire site covers five million square feet — roughly equivalent to nine soccer fields. It’s all about scale. 

“The museum has also, rather famously, taken years to complete. The Irish-American architecture practice Heneghan Peng, based between Dublin and Berlin, won the international competition for the building in 2003, against over 1,500 applications from 82 countries. Now, over 20 years and $870 million later, it is open to the public, showing off the vast trove of breathtaking objects dating from 3100 BCE to 410 CE.   

“Two tumultuous decades go a long way to account for the delay. Disruptions included the Arab Spring of 2011; the coup d’etat of 2013; the pandemic; economic collapse and raging inflation; and at least five changes at the top. …

“The space, though cavernous, is not wasted. Crowds course up the stupendous six-story staircase, flanked by escalators that create an upward-sloping landscape dotted with heroic statuary and architecture installed on the steps in a genius act of display. There are ten statues of King Senusret 1, a beautiful black granite sculpture of the Sphinx of King Amenemhat III, and the perfectly preserved doorway to his grandfather’s tomb. All are striped with dazzling slashes of sunlight that glimmers across the exhibits from skylights many feet above. 

“At the top, an enormous window frames breathtaking views of the Great Pyramids of Giza, and to the right is the entrance to the twelve galleries housing the thousands of objects that reveal the complexities of the ancient Egyptian world.

Among the regulations posted on the door are ‘In an earthquake, stay away from large objects.’ …

“It is the minutiae of daily life that enchants the most. There are sets of bronze tools to thrill even today’s DIY enthusiast, models of hairstyles from bobs to up-dos designed to show elaborate earrings, travertine vessels that most likely contained make-up, and hundreds of beetle-shaped seals. Intricate plaster models reveal the tiniest details of boats and their oarsmen. A dollhouse-sized grain store comes complete with workers. On the grander side are the breathtaking spoils of burial: luxurious jewelry in glass beads and gold, leather garments, elaborately painted sarcophagi, porcelain shabtis (figurines), and gold-and-jade amulets. 

“Tutankhamun commands his own gallery, starting with a fleet of bronze-and-gold chariots so sophisticated that one can only wonder why it took modern civilization another 2,000 years to invent the motorcar. State-of-the-art screens detail the tomb’s discovery, but the objects prove to be the biggest draw: the golden throne, the king’s own armor of overlapping leather scales. …

“The architects, Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng, … perhaps would notice myriad changes. Was the monotony of material on the interior — acres of the same Egyptian marble — in their original plan? Or the ground floor’s airport-like procession of Starbucks and [pastry shops]? Still, the clever skylights, slanting walls, and direct axial relationship to the pyramids beyond feel firmly in place. …

“According to Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, the museum is still incomplete. ‘I need three objects to come back,’ he told the BBC. ‘The Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre, and the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin.’ Even without them, the value of Egypt’s extraordinary ancient history remains as appealing as ever.”  

Great photos at Galerie. More pictures at ArchDaily, here.

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Mysterious Holes in Peru Explained

January 22, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: C. Stanish/University of Sydney.
Band of Holes, known as Monte Sierpe in Peru, may have been an accounting and storage system.

Sometimes the mysteries on Planet Earth can be solved just by looking at the facts in a new way. Today’s article is on probing a geographical problem, but I can’t help wondering, What if we tried tackling other intransigent problems by just looking at the challenges differently?

Richard Luscombe reports at the Guardian, “A Florida archaeologist’s decades-long persistence has helped solve one of Peru’s most puzzling geographical conundrums: the origin and purpose of the so-called Band of Holes in the country’s mountainous Pisco Valley.

“Charles Stanish, professor of archaeology at the University of South Florida, and an expert on Andean culture, spent years studying the more than 5,200 curious hillside shallow pits known to local residents as Monte Sierpe — serpent mountain.

“He surmised during numerous field trips since the 1980s that the holes were man-made indentations created during the pre-Inca period for a rudimentary market place, then adapted by Incan civilization into a sophisticated kind of accounting and storage system, likely for agriculture.

“Rival theories abounded — from the sensible to the bizarre. [One] aired on the Ancient Aliens television program and exploited by an enterprising travel company was that they were crafted by extraterrestrial beings, perhaps to cover up the crash of their spacecraft.

“Now Stanish, in partnership with Dr Jacob Bongers of the University of Sydney, his former graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes he has found the smoking gun. On their most recent expedition they used advanced drone technology to conduct the first comprehensive aerial mapping of the site, producing high-resolution images revealing ‘striking patterns’ in how the holes were organized.

“The rows of holes, each between 3ft and 6.5ft wide, appeared segmented and mathematically structured, they said, a layout mirroring khipus, knotted-string devices the Inca used for counting and record keeping.

“ ‘Monte Sierpe is extremely difficult to map from the surface,’ Stanish said. ‘Even from the mountain above you can’t see its full pattern because of the permanent haze in the area. And because there were few artifacts, archaeologists couldn’t date or interpret it accurately.’

“Even more conclusive, Stanish said, were the results of microbotanical analysis of sediment samples taken from inside the holes. Fossilized seeds revealed traces of crops such as maize and wild plants traditionally used for weaving and packaging goods.

“ ‘We proved that the seeds didn’t fly in, they weren’t airborne, they had to be put there by humans,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get any, with one exception way down below, colonial-era seeds, and we got one carbon-dated to slightly pre-Inca. … And the coolest stuff was we found the reeds, the traditional reeds and the willows that the Inca and the Quechua peoples use to carry commodities, even up to the present day.’ …

“Stanish said future work will focus on further analysis of the recovered seed samples, while Bongers plans to lead an upcoming expedition for more excavation. …

“He said he hoped that authorities in Peru would recognize the historical significance of the holes, and move to protect them.

“ ‘I’m not worried about tourists, about foreigners coming,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about landowners getting the land and then irrigating it. People have to make a living. [But] this is a precious site, for the Indigenous peoples and for their pride, and it’s important to recognize that.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Art Photos

January 21, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photos:John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Joy Muller-McCoola’s fiber art piece “Rising,” at Lexington Art.

Textile artist Ann often digs me out of my rut to go see some fiber art and afterward have a nice lunch somewhere close by. Most recently, we went to a beautiful show at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society in Lexington, Massachusetts.

I was drawn to the piece above because I love islands. This one is emerging from the sea in an unspoiled form. It felt hopeful. Below is one called “Sky with 7 Sheep.” It practically leapt from the wall.

After that, you can see the lovely “Light Breaking on Water,” by Ann Scott. And Sandra Mayo’s “The Way We Touch the World,” with the gloved hands, was intriguing.

What do these pieces mean to the artists? one wonders. What do they mean to me at a moment in time? And do meanings change?

That got me thinking that I never posted pictures of some works that I liked last fall at Concord Art. So I’ll add them now and wind up with my own attempt at an artsy photo. We can call it “Dawn at the Gym.”

Here is Nancy Mimno’s “Dragon.”

Sarah Bossert created “Four and Twenty Blackbirds.”

Below, Carol Rabe’s “Late Night Snack.”

“Dawn at the Gym.”


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Ultimate Recycling: Romania

January 20, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: RetuRO SGR.
A notice for the RetuRO scheme, above. In the two years since launch, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has frequently hit 94% in Romania.

Romania was for the longest time behind the rest of Europe in initiatives like recycling. But once the stakeholders there saw how a modern system could benefit everyone, it made surprisingly fast strides.

Andrei Popoviciu writes at the Guardian, “In the Transylvanian village of Pianu de Jos, 51-year-old Dana Chitucescu gathers a sack of empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, aluminum cans and glass every week and takes it to her local shop.

“Like millions of Romanians across cities and rural areas, Chitucescu has woven the country’s two-year-old deposit return system (DRS) into her routine.

“It is a simple scheme: when buying soft drinks or alcoholic beverages, the customer pays an extra 0.50 Romanian leu [$0.11] per bottle and gets the money back when returning the packaging, cleaned and in its original shape, to a collection point (usually the same shops where the goods were bought).

“Chitucescu makes about 40 leu a week from recycling her and another family’s bottles. ‘That covers the food for my seven cats,’ she said.

‘It’s a great system, everyone in our village uses it, there’s always a queue at the shop.’

“Her weekly walk is one tiny part of a national shift that, until recently, seemed impossible. Romania’s recycling rates were among the lowest in the EU, but in the two years since the scheme launched, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has skyrocketed to as high as 94% in some months.

“ ‘It is a zero to hero story,’ said Gemma Webb, the chief executive of RetuRO, the company running the system in a public-private partnership with beverage packaging manufacturers and the state. ‘The products are clean, there is little contamination, they can be recycled easily and we have full traceability as well, so we know every bottle that goes on the market.’

“[Between] the system’s launch in November 2023 and the end of September 2025, according to the company … more than 500,000 tons of high-quality recyclable materials have been collected. ‘We are the largest fully integrated deposit return system globally.’

“The scale of Romania’s turnaround is even more striking given where the country started. For more than a decade, the country has sat at the bottom of Europe’s recycling statistics. …

“But in 2018 the government began discussions about the scheme; in 2022 RetuRO began work, and on an extremely tight timeline including the construction of nine counting and sorting centers nationwide, the scheme launched in late 2023. …

“Starting later than other countries may have been an advantage, says Raul Pop, the secretary of state in the environment ministry and a waste policy expert because Romania could use modern software and traceability tools.

“It is on a return-to-retail model: shops that sell the containers must either install reverse vending machines or process the packaging manually. There is also a financial incentive for them, which helps them cover processing costs, and RetuRO reinvests all profits back into operations. … A recent study found that 90% of Romanians say they have used the system at least once and 60% return packaging regularly.

“Other countries, Pop explained, ‘suffer from their own inertia’ because they introduced their systems decades ago and are now stuck with outdated models. For them, shifting to new systems risks confusing consumers, even if it could improve collection rates. …

“Romania has also introduced a supportive legal framework, which means retailers can be penalized if they refuse returns – even the smallest village shops must accept containers if they sell the products or they risk fines, while big chains have automated return points.

“After the success with beverage containers, there are plans to expand the system to cover other types of packaging. ‘If you can put a bottle of water, you can also put a bottle of vinegar, a jar or a milk carton,’ said Alexandra Țuțuianu of Ecoteca, Romania’s first waste management NGO. …

“Environmental groups have praised Romania’s system, but warn that it covers only a small slice of the country’s overall waste stream. ‘It’s the largest environmental program, an example of good practice, we praise it, we like the system a lot, but it is not enough, it does not solve the waste problem in Romania,’ said Țuțuianu. …

“Even with a hypothetical 100% return rate for beverage containers, the overall waste recycling rate would only rise marginally. Re-use, Elena Rastei of the NGO Zero Waste Romania argued, needed to be looked at more closely.

“ ‘Collection solves the problem of visible waste, but re-use changes its nature. When packaging circulates – returned, washed, refilled – it becomes a resource, not waste. A single, reusable bottle can replace 20 to 50 single-use bottles, cut carbon emissions, and support a truly circular economy.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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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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