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Optical-Illusion Speed Bumps

January 2, 2018 by suzannesmom


Photo: Ralf Trylla / Town of Ísafjörður, Iceland
Ísafjörður, Iceland, recently installed a 3-D crosswalk on a centrally located street.

Optical-illusion speed bumps are getting to be a thing. Matt Rocheleau writes about the concept at the Boston Globe.

“A handful of cities around the world have painted optical illusions on roadways — think raised beams and even images of children — that appear, at first glance, to be blocking motorists’ paths.

“The idea is to get lead-footed drivers to put on the brakes. After all, if you think you’re going to hit a steel beam or a little girl chasing her ball, you’re going to slow down.

“Popular from New Delhi to a tiny town in Iceland, the most prevalent of these illusions are the striped lines made to look like [3-D] blocks floating in the middle of the road. …

“Officials in the other countries say the markings have contributed to better driving. And while they can add an element of surprise, officials in other locations said they haven’t seen any reports of drivers stopping so quickly that they’ve caused an accident.

“Initial measurements by the city’s traffic police found speeds dropped by 15 percent in the areas where 3-D crosswalks were installed last year, according to Yogesh Saini, founder of Delhi Street Art, which painted the crosswalks on the municipal council’s behalf.

” ‘As people got accustomed to seeing them, the speeds appear to have crept up some,’ Saini added in an e-mail. …

“In Western Canada, officials took the optical illusion even further when a nonprofit called The Community Against Preventable Injuries installed a 3-D decal on a road near a school to raise awareness about speeding in school zones.

“The decal, called ‘Pavement Patty,’ looked like a girl was in the street chasing a ball. It was installed temporarily.”

Thank goodness for “temporarily.” I’m all for any trompe-l’œil speed bumps that slow drivers down in areas with pedestrians, but please, no pictures of people! Once drivers get used to the images, do they then get used to charging fast at people? I hope communities will stick with floating blocks and steel beams.

More at the Boston Globe.

Photo: The Community Against Preventable Injuries
In West Vancouver Canada, a nonprofit installed a 3-D decal on a road near a school. I sure would worry about leaving this one out long enough for drivers to get used to it.

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Malmö’s Shops for Mice

January 1, 2018 by suzannesmom


I once posted a picture of Legos used to “repair” a wall in Fort Point. A tourist brochure ended up using it. I’ve also featured artists like Slinkachu and David Zinn, who create tiny scenes in streets. Today I want to tell you about mouse storefronts mysteriously popping up in Sweden.

Reports the Swedish edition of The Local, “The appearance of anonymous art has brought smiles to the faces of Malmö residents after a miniature, mouse-sized shop and restaurant took up residence on one of the city’s streets.

“Anyone in the area of the intersection between Bergsgatan and Almbacksgatan in the southern Swedish city should pay attention to where they walk: hidden at ground level lies a French nut store named ‘Noix de Vie’ (Nuts of life) selling a range of nuts for the city’s mice.

“Next door, an Italian restaurant called ‘Il Topolino’ (the Italian name for Mickey Mouse) has moved in, complete with a pin-sized menu attached to the wall detailing its range of cheese and crackers. There are even posters for mouse-related films, and a tiny power station and bicycle outside.

“So who is responsible for the inventive work? An anonymous artist (or artists) going only by the name ‘Anonymouse.’ He, she or they have been periodically posting images on their Instagram account detailing the installation, from the construction stage onwards.”

More at Sweden’s The Local, here.

From Bored Panda: “Anonymouse was fed up with the lack of shops for rodents, so they decided to open a couple of them at once. The 70×30 cm (about 25×12 inch) stores are located in Malmö, Sweden, and they have wide menus that mice can choose their meals from. …

“Besides the well-crafted interiors, there are posters about upcoming mice concerts and other events.”

Find these photos and more by searching the hashtag #Anonymouse_MMX on twitter. The twitter account itself seems to have been removed.

Hat tip: @morinotsuma on twitter.

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How Ordinary People Are Reducing Crime

December 31, 2017 by suzannesmom


Photo: Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times
Noreen McClendon, executive director of Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles, works to create affordable housing and job opportunities. A byproduct: crime reduction.

When people focus on getting “tough on crime,” crime can get worse. Emily Badger writes at the New York Times about research suggesting that people in communities where crime has gone way down since the 1990s “were working hard, with little credit, to address the problem themselves.

“Local nonprofit groups that responded to the violence by cleaning streets, building playgrounds, mentoring children and employing young men had a real effect on the crime rate. That’s what Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at New York University, argues in a new study and a forthcoming book. Mr. Sharkey doesn’t contend that community groups alone drove the national decline in crime, but rather that their impact is a major missing piece. …

“Between the early 1990s and 2015, the homicide rate in America fell by half. Rates of robbery, assault and theft tumbled in tandem. In New York, Washington and San Diego, murders dropped by more than 75 percent. Although violence has increased over the last two years in some cities, including Chicago and Baltimore, even those places remain safer than they were 25 years ago. …

“This long-term trend has fundamentally altered city life. It has transformed fear-inducing parks and subways into vibrant public spaces. It has lured wealthier whites back into cities. It has raised the life expectancies of black men. …

“The same communities were participating in another big shift that started in the 1990s: The number of nonprofits began to rise sharply across the country, particularly those addressing neighborhood and youth development. …

“Nonprofits were more likely to form in the communities with the gravest problems. But they also sprang up for reasons that had little to do with local crime trends, such as an expansion in philanthropic funding. …

“Comparing the growth of other kinds of nonprofits, the researchers believe they were able to identify the causal effect of these community groups. …

“The research also affirms some of the tenets of community policing: that neighborhoods are vital to policing themselves, and that they can address the complex roots of violence in ways that fall beyond traditional police work. …

“Many similar groups did not explicitly think of what they were doing as violence prevention. But in creating playgrounds, they enabled parents to better monitor their children. In connecting neighbors, they improved the capacity of residents to control their streets. In forming after-school programs, they offered alternatives to crime.

“In the East Lake neighborhood of Atlanta, the crime rate in the mid 1990s was 18 times the national average. …

“ ‘We knew we wanted to see violence and crime go down in the community,’ said Carol Naughton, who led the foundation for years and today is the president of a national group, Purpose Built Communities, that is trying to teach East Lake’s model in other cities. ‘But we’ve never had a crime-prevention program.’

“Today violent crime in East Lake is down 90 percent from 1995.”

One and one and 50 make a million. As solutions to the world’s problems fail to come top-down, ordinary folks are leading the way. More here.

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Evangelical School with No Grades, No Deadlines

December 30, 2017 by suzannesmom

 


Photograph: ESBC Handout
Pupils at this German school have no homework and no grades until age 15, but they are learning a lot.

My husband and I have liked seeing how Montessori teachers guide children in learning. They get them started and then turn them loose to learn at their own speed and follow their own interests. Certainly, the approach has been good for Suzanne’s eldest.

Having been an elementary school teacher for five years right after college, I continue to be intrigued by different techniques. Here is a method that is working in Germany.

Philip Oltermann writes at The Guardian, “Anton Oberländer is a persuasive speaker. Last year, when he and a group of friends were short of cash for a camping trip to Cornwall, he managed to talk Germany’s national rail operator into handing them some free tickets. So impressed was the management with his chutzpah that they invited him back to give a motivational speech to 200 of their employees. Anton, it should be pointed out, is 14 years old.

“The Berlin teenager’s self-confidence is largely the product of a unique educational institution that has turned the conventions of traditional teaching radically upside down. At Oberländer’s school, there are no grades until students turn 15, no timetables and no lecture-style instructions. The pupils decide which subjects they want to study for each lesson and when they want to take an exam. …

“Set subjects are limited to maths, German, English and social studies, supplemented by more abstract courses such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘challenge.’ For challenge, students aged 12 to 14 are given €150 [$180] and sent on an adventure that they have to plan entirely by themselves. Some go kayaking; others work on a farm. Anton went trekking along England’s south coast. …

“The school’s headteacher, Margret Rasfeld, argues [that] the most important skill a school can pass down to its students is the ability to motivate themselves. …

“The Evangelical School Berlin Centre (ESBC) is trying to do nothing less than ‘reinvent what a school is,’ she says. ‘The mission of a progressive school should be to prepare young people to cope with change, or better still, to make them look forward to change. … Nothing motivates students more than when they discover the meaning behind a subject of their own accord.’ …

“Germany’s federalised education structure, in which each of the 16 states plans its own education system, has traditionally allowed ‘free learning’ models to flourish. Yet unlike Sudbury, Montessori or Steiner schools, Rasfeld’s institution tries to embed student self-determination within a relatively strict system of rules. Students who dawdle during lessons have to come into school on Saturday morning to catch up. …

“The main reason why the ESBC is gaining a reputation as Germany’s most exciting school is that its experimental philosophy has managed to deliver impressive results. … Yet some educational experts question whether the school’s methods can easily be exported: in Berlin, they say, the school can draw the most promising applicants from well-off and progressive families.

“Rasfeld rejects such criticisms, insisting that the school aims for a heterogenous mix of students from different backgrounds. While a cross adorns the assembly hall and each school day starts with worship, only one-third of current pupils are baptised. Thirty per cent of students have a migrant background and 7% are from households where no German is spoken.”

Read more here.

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Back Home. With Pictures

December 29, 2017 by suzannesmom

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Some days it was too cold for our skiers to ski, but since I wasn’t planning to ski anyway, I just did the things I usually do — blogging, reading, exercising … I finished a masterful biography of poet Elizabeth Bishop and launched joyfully into the first volume of Philip Pullman’s new series, The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage.

I discovered a new liking for a treadmill, but only one with a view of the mountains beyond an outdoor hot tub in a fitness center with no noisy music or TV. I set the treadmill at Snail. That’s not the very slowest, you know. Sloth is slower.

And I ate. A lot. The Austrian-themed food at the Trapp Family Lodge is pretty rich. I especially loved the breakfast buffet, where even though I ate a lot, I could make choices that were good for me.

The only thing I’d do differently is bring a tea kettle to make my own kind of coffee at 4:30 or 5. That’s just me. Lots of people like those Keurig, one-cup brewers using Green Mountain Coffee. The lodge has them in guest rooms. Lots of people are also able to sleep until 7, when you can get better coffee in the bar.

The trip was a nice break from routine. I hope you had a good holiday week, too.

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Immigrants in Vermont

December 28, 2017 by suzannesmom

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Dressing in Austrian dirndl at Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe, Vermont.

Nearly five years ago, when I was an editor, I solicited an article on Latino dairy workers from Daniel Baker at the University of Vermont. Dairy farms are practically synonymous with Vermont, where cows dot the mountainous landscape. The article summarized Dr. Baker’s research showing how essential immigrants were to the Vermont dairy industry’s survival. (Read the piece here.)

Of late, however, Vermont dairy farmers are anxious about their industry’s viability as walls both figurative and solid threaten the labor supply.

Visiting the state this week, I did note that there seemed to be a good supply of immigrants or former immigrants working in the hospitality industry at least.

I try not to ask people where they are “from” since friends in my Race in America group at the Fed have convinced me it’s a question that can make people feel unwelcome. But I was interested when someone whose way of speaking suggested Africa came to fix the hotel shower and when I noted the dirndl-garbed young lady above working the breakfast shift.

According to 2015 data from Migration Policy, Vermont has 2,619 residents born in Africa (9.3 % of the state’s foreign-born population in 2015), 8,199 born in Asia (29%), 9,113 born in Europe (32.3%), 3,038 born in Latin America (10.8%), 4, 875 born in North America, with small places like Greenland added to that mix (17.3%), and 403 born in Oceana (1.4%). By far the largest group is from Canada, which borders Vermont on the north. Vermont would be a more empty state than it is and nearly devoid of workers without all the foreign born.

If you’re interested in more, take a look at American Migration Council’s Vermont data, too. It’s here.

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No Strings Marionettes

December 27, 2017 by suzannesmom

treasurehunt

Photo: No Strings Marionette Company
In this production, Treasure Hunt, a boy called Jim is lured out to sea, where he encounters a mermaid, “a giant clam, a fish that swallows him whole, an electric eel and an angry octopus guarding his treasure.”

Tuesday night at the Trapp Family Lodge, my husband and I watched a charming puppet show about a fox called Sharp Ears. The show was created and performed by the Vermont-based No Strings Marionette Company. Our four grandchildren were too tired for theater after a day of skiing, but we were charmed — especially by unusual marionettes like the frog, the chicken and chicks, the rooster, the grasshopper, the cow, and the numerous butterflies and flying bugs. And in case the theatrical company’s title threw you off, the puppets do have strings.

We very much enjoyed hanging around afterwards to listen to the questions that children asked the puppeteers: how do you make puppets? how do you make them move? how did you make the bench? did you paint your sets or buy them? do you have other shows?

Puppeteers Dan Baginski and Barbara Paulson have about 12 other shows, which they tour widely, keeping them so busy that the story of Sharp Ears took them two years to create at night — instead of the four months in which they could have finished if they’d been able to work nonstop.  “Sharp Ears” is still new, not even up on the website yet.

The show was based on the Czech story called “The Adventures of the Vixen Known as Sharp Ears,” on which the opera The Cunning Little Vixen is also based. In this version, a henpecked woodcutter who’d rather hang out in nature than do his chores brings home a fox as a pet for his grandson, with unfortunate consequences for the farm.

Dan and Barbara, says their website, “have toured America together for over sixteen years.  Their traveling stage transforms any space into an intimate theater, where the seamless blend of movement, music and masterful manipulation captivates young and old alike.

“With puppeteers in full view,  the audience sees how the puppets are brought to life. These Vermont artisans lovingly hand craft the marionettes, props and scenery, whether for an original tale or an adaptation of a classic.

“Shows begin with an interactive song featuring audience members, and finish with demonstrations sparked by the audiences’ curious questions.”

More here.

Photo: No Strings Marionette Company
Puppet characters from The Hobbit.

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Troupe Turns Your Story into Theater

December 26, 2017 by suzannesmom


Photo: True Story Theater
An Arlington, Mass., theater troupe performs the stories of ordinary people.

Recently, John told me about an unusual improvisational theater group that will perform your story. Called True Story Theater, it is affiliated with the worldwide Playback Theatre movement, which seeks to right wrongs experienced by minorities and marginalized groups by putting their actual words into plays to build understanding.

From the website: “True Story Theater is a nonprofit theater company that offers 50-75 improvisational performances and workshops a year for community groups, businesses, and individuals mostly in the greater Boston area. We work with hospitals, universities, corporations, religious communities, with teen leaders, cancer survivors, activists, philanthropists, business leaders …

“Our mission is to build empathy and respect in community through honoring all of our true stories.

“In performances, volunteers from the audience are helped to share what’s important in their lives. On the spot, actors then portray the heart of what they heard using music, movement, and dialogue. From this simple interaction, people laugh, cry, share fresh insights, and bond. … True Story Theater offers audiences fresh perspectives, deeper connections, and a renewed appreciation for our common humanity.”

The troupe says it employs many dramatic styles but is especially indebted to the technique of Playback Theatre, which “was founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas in New Paltz, NY. …

“Globally, Playback is often used to reach disenfranchised people and to build understanding where conflict had driven people apart. A few examples:

“Southern India: Groups of Dalit people have used Playback Theatre to assert their rights. Western Australia: Playback has helped landowners and Aboriginal people find common ground. Burundi: Hutu and Tutsi actors work together in a Playback troupe in a country healing civil war.”

Watch samples from performances here.

True Story Theater is also available to draw people out at weddings and other such events.

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The Other Wise Man

December 25, 2017 by suzannesmom

otherwiseman4

Art: Robert T. Barrett
The “other” wise man, meeting the needs that cross his path, is too late to present gifts to the baby in the manger. But “Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)

I loved this story as a child. Just for you, I present a summary from Wikipedia, slightly edited.

“The Story of the Other Wise Man,” by Henry van Dyke, was initially published in 1895. The story is an expansion of the account of the Biblical Magi. It tells about a “fourth” wise man, a priest of the Magi named Artaban, one of the Medes from Persia. Like the other Magi, he sees signs in the heavens proclaiming that a King had been born among the Jews. Like them, he sets out to see the newborn ruler, carrying treasures to give as gifts to the child — a sapphire, a ruby, and a “pearl of great price.”

However, he stops along the way to help a dying man, which makes him late to meet with the caravan of the other three wise men. Because he missed the caravan, and he can’t cross the desert with only a horse, he is forced to sell one of his treasures in order to buy the camels and supplies necessary for the trip. He then commences his journey but arrives in Bethlehem too late to see the child, whose parents have fled to Egypt. He saves the life of a child at the price of another of his treasures.

He then travels to Egypt and to many other countries, searching for Jesus for many years and performing acts of charity along the way. After 33 years, Artaban arrives in Jerusalem just as Jesus as been condemned to death. He spends his last treasure, the pearl, to ransom a young woman from being sold into slavery. He is then badly injured in an accident and realizes he is dying. He has failed to meet Jesus because he has been busy meeting the needs that appear before him.

Then he hears a voice: “Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.”(Matthew 25:40) His treasures have been accepted.

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Candles in the Darkness

December 24, 2017 by suzannesmom

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Among the many gifts our country has received from Mexico is the luminaria, which some of us put outside our homes on Christmas Eve. This gift originated back when Mexico was called New Spain and still included Texas.

I first learned about the custom in upstate New York years ago when, exhausted from wrapping presents, I took a walk around the neighborhood in the snowy darkness. “What’s that?” I wondered at one neighbor’s house. “How lovely!”

Since that year, I have put candles out every Christmas Eve in rain or snow, fair weather or foul. Sometimes the candles are in paper bags weighted with kitty litter. Sometimes they are in glass vases collected from florists.

This year my husband and I are cutting back a bit on the festivities at our house as we’re going to John’s church Christmas Eve and then to Vermont so that most of the family can ski (my husband, our kids, their spouses, our grandkids). I myself have three very fat library books that I hope to read in front of a nice fire.

Back to luminaria. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Here is the entry, edited.

A luminaria is a small paper lantern (commonly a candle set in some sand inside a paper bag) which is of significance in the U.S. state of New Mexico at Christmas time, especially on Christmas Eve.

Traditional Christmas Eve luminarias are said to originate from Spaniard merchants impressed with Chinese paper lanterns. The paper bags are typically arranged in rows to create large and elaborate displays. The hope among Roman Catholics is that the lights will guide the spirit of the Christ child to one’s home.

More.

Whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope you take delight in the oldest customs you know.

Photo: camerafiend/English Wikipedia
Christmas Eve luminaria (sometimes called farolito) are on display in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Another Photo Roundup

December 23, 2017 by suzannesmom

Before we head off for vacation (actually, I’m retired, so I’m always on vacation), I thought I’d post some more photos, especially as blogger KerryCan says she likes them. The general theme is winter, which began officially with the Winter Solstice on Thursday. I already imagine that I can perceive the increase in daylight. (Well, we believe what we want to believe.)

OK, what have we here? A shock of deciduous holly berries. We need to prune these bushes, but the shivering birds get to eat first.

Two shadow pictures and ESL students dancing at one Jewish Vocational Service holiday party. The dancers here are from Morocco, Ivory Coast, Puerto Rico and Haiti. The teacher is the woman in red. Everyone brought food. I especially loved the Chinese pot stickers and the Nepalese chicken curry. My chocolate chip cookies disappeared, too.

The Colonial Inn has an annual Gingerbread House display.

My 7-year-old grandson is a fierce hockey player whether on his team (Saturday 7 a.m. practice, Anyone?) or in this backyard rink created by John.

The last photos don’t really need commentary, but I thought the lost Christmas crafts were sweet and clearly wanted to be on some child’s tree. I hope they got a home.

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Not All Carols Are Created Equal

December 22, 2017 by suzannesmom

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Photo: Teachingtimes.com
Could these faces lifted in song be any sweeter?

I was tired of “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bells,” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” before I got through Thanksgiving this year. Maybe you felt the same. Why is it so rare to hear carols like “I Wonder as I Wander,” the haunting “Minuit, Chrétiens,” or authentic Gospel music at this season?

Today I decided to correct that loss a little with YouTube music that should not make anyone feel like running and hiding. I’d love it if you would share your favorite seasonal music with other readers in the Comments.

Above, the Choir of Kings College sings “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Next we have the Cambridge Singers with “I Wonder as I Wander.”

Finally, whatever one’s faith or feelings about religion, who can resist the voice of Harry Belafonte with his honeyed Jamaican diction? (Note where the person typing the lyrics wrote “the” instead of what he really said, which is so much more charming.)

 

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Blind Kayaker Emulates Mythical King

December 21, 2017 by suzannesmom

Photo: Adam Grossberg/KQED
Ahmet Ustunel, who is blind, plans to kayak across the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey, like blind King Phineus of Greek mythology.

Never say studying Greek mythology fails to prepare a student for life. Laura Klivans’s story at Public Radio International will help you understand why it can be valuable.

“Ahmet Ustunel remembers his daily commute to high school well. He’d wake up at home, on the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey, a city that straddles two continents. Then he would take a ferry across the Bosphorus Strait to the European side of the city. …

“Ustunel has been blind since he was three years old when he lost his sight because of eye cancer — but that never kept him away from the water. He spent afternoons fishing with his father and summers swimming in the Black Sea, where his grandmother had a house. …

“For the last 11 years, Ustunel has lived in the United States. … He plans to return to his homeland next summer to kayak solo across the Bosphorus Strait. …

“Ustunel first became inspired to captain his own boat in high school, while studying Greek mythology. …

” ‘There was this blind king called Phineus, and he used to live on the north side of the Bosphorus,’ he recalled. ‘His mission was guiding sailors in the dark safely to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean.’ …

“Earlier this year, Ustunel saw an opportunity … A nonprofit launched a new award to fund blind and visually impaired people undertaking adventures. The Holman Prize for Blind Ambition offers grants of up to $25,000 to accomplish a bold project. …

“LightHouse has been able to fund these creative projects after receiving an unexpected gift of $125 million from a Seattle businessman upon his death.

“For Ustunel, the money will help him buy the right kind of kayak and the instruments he will use to navigate. He’s documenting his training process on his website, where he calls himself ‘The Blind Captain.’

“So, how do you kayak if you can’t see? Ustunel says the first thing is to use your other senses, which can convey lots of information. …

“But to cross the Bosphorus, Ustunel will need more than just his senses. His journey will be just over 3 miles, but the strait is one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. The waters are dangerously crowded with huge freighters and tankers, alongside small ferries and fishing boats — and the currents are strong.”

At PRI, here, you can read about the many gadgets the kayaker is testing before he tackles the Bosphorous.

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A Real Artist of Light

December 20, 2017 by suzannesmom

Photo: Flying Studio / Mary Corse, Kayne Griffin Corcoran
Mary Corse transformed the exterior of her studio into “Untitled (White Light Bands).” The art takes on an otherworldly glow at dusk.

Here is a story about art works that you have to see in person because the light shifts when you move.

Carolina A. Miranda reports at the Los Angeles Times,”If you stand outside of Mary Corse’s studio in Topanga Canyon at just the right hour, you might get to see one of her works come to life. The painter, who is known for playing with the properties of light, last year transformed the exterior of her studio into one of her largest pieces to date. Along the building’s exterior face, she painted a sequence of four simple columns employing one of the materials for which she is best known: white paint mixed with glass microbeads. The material is what gives street signs and lane markings their illuminative properties.

“ ‘They don’t reflect light, they prism,’ Corse says. ‘It makes a triangle between the surface, the viewer and light. So if the viewer moves, then it changes.’

“In broad daylight, the columns on Corse’s studio are barely perceptible. But at dusk, when the light dims, it is a different story. The moment the wall is hit by any stray beam of light, the columns take on an otherworldly glow.

The effect is that of a portal opening into a parallel universe. …

“Since the 1960s, the Los Angeles artist has produced a body of work that toys with light and the emotional states it can induce — using reflective and refractive materials to create pieces that can shift and change in surprising ways as you move before them. …

“As an artist, she has remained somewhat under the radar — known to a circle of art world insiders; less so to the general public.

“That is changing. [Corse had a November show at] Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, with works from various stages in her career — including an immersive environment she first conceived in the 1960s titled ‘The Cold Room,’ a free-standing structure kept at near-freezing temperatures, in which floats a spectral light box. …

“In May, Dia:Beacon, the temple to minimalism in New York’s Hudson Valley, will present a long-term installation of four recently acquired works covering the span of her career. And the following month, the Whitney Museum of American Art will open the doors on Corse’s first solo museum survey.

“ ‘It will be focusing on her critical moments,’ says the exhibition’s curator, Kim Conaty, ‘starting with her early experiments with shaped canvases, when she was beginning to think about how to find light within painting. …

” ‘She has not only used materials in innovative ways to literally capture light,’ Conaty says, “but to also capture the metaphysical qualities of light. And she has done a lot of it through painting.’ …

“Conaty says the work requires some commitment from the viewer.

“ ‘You pass it, you do the double take, you come back, you move along the side of it,’ she says. ‘You can’t just walk through.’ ”

Conaty is a close friend of Suzanne, so if you are in New York City in June, please go see the Mary Corse show she’s curating.

More on Corse at the Los Angeles Times, here.

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Dec.19… Kiffles

December 19, 2017 by suzannesmom

This cookie recipe from Deb’s grandmother looked too delicious not to share. Here you go … today’s bonus!

sevencubs's Blog

I had mentioned about a year ago that I would explain more on how to do Kiffles, I think I procrastinated.

Not any more will I procrastinate, here goes on how to make kiffles , a real favorite in this household. It is an old recipe handed down from my Grammy.

In a large bowl put a pound of butter (2cups) if it is not room temperature than warm butter in microwave. Add 1 cup of sour cream ,3 egg yolks and one whole egg. ( Set egg whites aside for tomorrow) 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 heaping tablespoon of yeast or one pack, and 4 cups of white flour. I mix all the ingredients except for the flour and yeast, which I add to the flour, then work the flour in by hand. The dough will be sticky rather like cookie dough.

Refrigerate overnight to let it rise.

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