December 29, 2012 by suzannesmom
I took vacation time Thursday afternoon and went with my husband to the American Repertory Theater production of the musical Pippin.
A polished and charming spectacle — with actual circus performers punctuating stages of Charlemagne’s son’s search for extraordinary-ness — it nevertheless failed to move me. Not sure what I was looking for. I had only the vaguest memory of Suzanne playing the part of Pippin’s grandmother in a church youth group production. The words she sang then, “Time to start livin’ ” constituted my favorite song in the A.R.T. production — utterly hilarious.
The Boston Globe lists certain details: “The show, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Roger O. Hirson, [has] direction by ART artistic director Diane Paulus … Playing Pippin [is] British-born actor Matthew James Thomas, who made his Broadway debut as the lead in ‘Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark.’ ”
The cast was tiptop. I liked the Bob Fosse dancing. I don’t mind that it is very stylized, but the whole show felt stylized and distancing. I felt I was always being caught up in the “art” of it and I wanted to be in the story.
The original version of Pippin was directed by Bob Fosse in 1972 and won nine Tony Awards. I think the A.R.T. version would do fine on Broadway, and I doubt most people would agree that the spectacle overwhelms the story. Most of the time it is just a lot of fun.
Photograph of Matthew James Thomas in rehearsal: David l. Ryan/Boston Globe
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged a.r.t., Bob Fosse, diane paulus, Matthew James Thomas, Pippin, Roger O. Hirson, Stephen Schwartz | Leave a Comment »
December 28, 2012 by suzannesmom
At Nourishing the Planet in October, Molly Redfield interviewed Vietnam vet Howard Hinterthuer, a peer-to-peer mentor for an Organic Therapy Program that helps distressed veterans.
Redfield: “You recently gave a Ted Talk on the Organic Therapy Program (OTP). Can you tell us how the OTP started? …
“William Sims, a Vietnam veteran of the 101st Airborne Division who served from 1966 to 1967, started the Organic Therapy Program. Mr. Sims was wounded after being in Vietnam for about 9 months, and returned home to Milwaukee. He was able to deal with the stress of coming home and experiencing combat by puttering around in his mom’s garden. He remembered that.
“The Center for Veterans Issues [in Milwaukee] has about 300 or more formerly homeless veterans in transition with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and depression. These veterans come to us and we provide a wrap-around service to deal with their different problems. Mr. Sims figured that if gardening was good for him, then it would be good for other veterans as well. So he began creating raised-bed gardens to help veterans cope with their problems. …
“Gardening is important because it allows our veterans to have … positive experiences. This is almost guaranteed by the act itself, as it creates such a peaceful place. Gardening is meditative and increases self-esteem. …
“After the TED talk I gave, I was contacted by a woman in Scotland working with veterans of the British military. Her program used horticulture for veterans’ recovery, so I think gardening is an approach to dealing with difficult issues that can definitely be replicated in other places.”
Read more.
Photograph: AP Photo/Chattanooga Times Free Press/Allison Love
Working in community gardening programs is proving to have many good effects on troubled military veterans.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged gardening, Howard Hinterthuer, milwaukee, Molly Redfield, nourishing the planet, Organic Therapy Program, ptsd, veterans | Leave a Comment »
December 27, 2012 by suzannesmom
The New York Times recently printed a lovely collection of pop-up music sightings by various reporters. Each unexpected free performance affected New Yorkers like a flash mob.
At the High Line, surprised “participants were given small sets of speakers that could be attached to their coats or backpacks, or held by hand. As you began the walk at the southern end of the High Line, near Gansevoort Street, your every footstep or hand twist kicked the app into action, and you heard various sounds — clinking, chimes, splashing water, car horns, chords on electric guitar and, in a novel touch, occasional rounds of applause.”
Another report notes, “The High Line elevated park does not normally allow group walks or amplified sounds, but it made an exception for ‘The Gaits,’ one of a dozen participatory performances that constituted Make Music Winter.
“The event was an offshoot of Make Music New York, a festival of hundreds of concerts that occurs in June on the first day of summer, in public spaces around the city. Modeled after Fête de la Musique, an annual affair in Paris started in 1982, the New York version is in its sixth year.
“The founder of Make Music New York is Aaron Friedman, a composer and political activist who decided it was time to add a winter solstice edition.”
Several delightful Winter Solstice music events are described here.
Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Meredith Krinke, 6, holds Bach sheet music for her father, Brian, December 21 on the G train in New York.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aaron Friedman, Allan Kozinn, brooklyn botanical garden, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, Fête de la Musique, flash mob, high line, Make Music New York, music, pop-up, soho, Steve Smith, subway, Todd Heisler, tommasini, wakin, winter solstice, zachary woolfe | Leave a Comment »
December 26, 2012 by suzannesmom
When people click “like” at one of my entries, I go look at their site. Often I find that we share interests. Art is one interest.
Katie J. Anderson clicked “like” for the post “Art in the Exurbs.” I think she is an artist in Scotland.
Her WordPress blog, here, led me further, to an artists’ cooperative blog where she volunteers time. The site is the Commonty, which in Scottish law is a “common; a piece of land in which two or more persons have a common right.”
Following Ariadne’s thread from one blog to another can confuse a person. Thus, the Commonty took me to “The Stove,” which the site says emphatically is not the Commonty although TheStove’s home page also seems to be the Commonty’s.
Perhaps confusion is a hazard of a blog run by many people. I dug some more and found this: “an artists collective from SouthWest Scotland, The Stove is occupying a 3 storey building in the heart of Dumfries as the HQ for an adventure that asks useful questions about the role of a southern regional capital in contemporary Scotland.”
Which doesn’t sound that different from this: “The Commonty was formed, and is run entirely, by working creative people on a voluntary basis – we have nobody’s remit or priorities except our own.
“We are committed to the vision of Dumfries and Galloway as a region whose character is significantly shaped by the creative people and projects that are based here — we see a vital spark in the interconnections between our environment and culture, making this the place that we want to live, and a place that we are proud of.”
In a recent post, the Commonty notes with pride: “The Theatre Royal, Lochside Theatre, and The Stove have received funding from Creative Scotland as part of a national programme which helps organisations carry out refurbishments and purchase equipment.”
Does someone from Dumfries or Galloway want to tell me more?
Photograph of Lochside Theatre at http://thecommonty.blogspot.com/
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged artists, artists cooperative, arts, dumfries, galloway, katie j anderson, lochside, scotland, the commonty | Leave a Comment »
December 25, 2012 by suzannesmom
A busy holiday here in New England with both our kids, their spouses, and the two grandsons. Every time we thought we were nearly done opening presents, one or more of us needed a nap.
The distaff side produced a chicken masala (with rice, nuts, raisins, cilantro, coconut, and chutney from Swaziland via the Servv catalog), creamed spinach, salad, and pear crumble.
Meanwhile, here’s a Christmas-y story from South America …
“In 2001, when Argentina’s economy was near collapse and property prices plummeted, UCLA art prof Fabian Wagmister bought a 15,000-square-foot abandoned warehouse in Buenos Aires. When he finally set out to clear the remaining debris from the building last year, he uncovered more than 100,000 Christmas ornaments piled in one of the back rooms.
“What to do with a trove of metallic bulbs, plastic wreaths, and bags of fake snow for a sunny Argentine Christmas?
“Re-gift them, of course,” writes Elise Hennigan at Pacific Standard.
“ ‘As artists we were immediately taken by the powerful expressive potential of the materials,’ says Wagmister.
“Now the director of the University of California, Los Angeles’s Center for Research in Engineering, Media, and Performance (REMAP), Wagmister invited a team of ten artists, researchers, and programmers from Los Angeles to distribute the ornaments to the surrounding community …
“Starting on December 15, the team invited community groups to visit the warehouse, one among many lining a historically working-class district that has seen an influx of technology companies. There, the researchers have encouraged participants to develop projects that will use the ornaments to express their identities, struggles and aspirations. On December 23, the groups took to the streets and decked the halls accordingly.” More.
Photograph: Pacific Standard
Some of the found ornaments going up around Argentina’s capital 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged argentina, art, artists, Buenos Aires, Center for Research in Engineering, christmas, Elise Hennigan, Fabian Wagmister, found objects, media, pacific standard, remap, ucla | 2 Comments »
December 24, 2012 by suzannesmom
At this time last year, I wrote at Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog that I came home from running an errand and found mystery cookies in the back door. It didn’t take long, however, to recognize the artistry of a certain family Suzanne has known since kindergarten.
This year, the pater familias presented me with a cookie I guarantee has never been seen before.
Perhaps you have heard of the Higgs Boson, that elusive particle that physicists claim is necessary for mass. It was thought to have been corralled last July after “a decades-long search [and] the construction of one of the most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider, able to create and study Higgs bosons (if they exist).” Thus, Wikipedia.
Do you believe in things unseen?
Well, let me tell you: if Higgs Boson were a cookie, this is what it would look like. (Please note the H and the confusion in the brain.)
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 23, 2012 by suzannesmom
Neda Ulaby, a National Public Radio (NPR) reporter, had an intersting story a while back about a vibrant art community in rural Marfa, Texas.
“This tiny town perched on the high plains of the Chihuahua desert is … a blue-chip arts destination for the sort of glamorous scenesters who visit Amsterdam for the Rijksmuseum ...
“It all started when the acclaimed minimalist artist Donald Judd left New York City in the 1970s for this dusty dot of a town. He wanted to escape the art scene he claimed to disdain. With the help of the DIA Foundation, Judd acquired an entire Army base, and before he died in 1994, he filled it with art, including light installations by Dan Flavin and Judd’s own signature boxes. One hundred of them, made of silvery milled aluminum, are housed in two old brick artillery sheds. … Now, all 400 acres of the site are run by the Chinati Foundation. …
Sculptor Campbell Bosworth, for one, loves living and working in Marfa.
” ‘You just come out here and you feel like, I want to make something; I want to do something!’ ”
Read more about art in exurbia. Cities are not the only places where art can be made.
But you knew that.
Photograph: Judd Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
In the 1970s, minimalist artist Donald Judd moved to Marfa, Texas, where he created giant works of art.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, Campbell Bosworth, Chihuahua desert, Chinati Foundation, dan flavin, DIA Foundation, donald judd, exurbia, exurbs, judd foundation, Lannan Foundation, minimalist, Neda Ulaby, vaga, west texas | Leave a Comment »
December 22, 2012 by suzannesmom
Public banks can be helpful in emergencies, and what with hurricanes, tornadoes, and all, we sure seem to have a lot of emergencies.
Grand Forks, North Dakota, figured this out after one of their floods. Most banks have to make sure their loans meet the tough safety and soundness requirements of regulators, so they may not come through fast enough for people trying to rebuild after a disaster. Grand Forks isn’t relying on them.
Kelly McCartney at Shareable (by way of the Christian Science Monitor) says that the Public Banking Institute blog at WordPress “cites a powerful example of how a public bank can help a city bounce back from a devastating natural disaster. As Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts unfold, there’s a lesson from history about the role of strong local financial institutions in increasing urban resilience.
“In April of 1997, Grand Forks, North Dakota, was hit by record flooding and major fires that put the city’s future in jeopardy. One of the first economic responders was the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the only public bank in the United States.
“What’s a public bank, you ask? Public banks are owned by citizens through their government. They have a public interest mission, are dedicated to funding local development, and plow profits back into the state treasury to fund social programs and cover deficits. Rather than competing with private banks, BND partners with them to meet the needs of North Dakotans. …
“As a public bank, BND was able to respond to the ’97 flood in ways that a privately owned bank could not …
“Right after the flood, the Bank of North Dakota got to work, established a disaster relief loan fund, set aside $5 million to assist flood victims, and set up additional credit lines of around $70 million.” More.
Photograph: Reuters/File
Residents of Grand Forks, N.D., carry their pet dog to safety in the shovel of a frontloader April 20, 1997. The more than 50,000 residents of the city were forced to evacuate as the Red River reached 25 feet above flood level. A public bank, owned by citizens, was a key player in the city’s recovery.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bnd, Christian Science Monitor, disaster, emergencies, grand forks, kelly mccartney, lending, loan, north dakota, public bank, rebuilding | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2012 by suzannesmom
Right outside my window at work is the rejuvenated Boston Tea Party Museum, which I watched rise from the ashes over a period of years.
On Sunday, December 16, there was a public reenactment of the original Boston Tea Party. A Boston Globe reporter got into the action:
“Upon entering the museum,” writes Christopher Klein, “we were given cards with brief biographies of actual Tea Party protesters, identities we would assume for the next hour. I realized I was dealt a bad hand as I read about my alter ego, John Crane, the Colonist caper’s lone casualty. After being knocked unconscious by a falling tea crate, Crane was thought to be dead and hidden by his compatriots under a pile of wood shavings in a nearby carpenter’s shop.
“He awoke hours later, however, and given a new lease on life, much like this museum itself, which was destroyed by a lightning strike in 2001 and set ablaze again in 2007 from sparks from a construction project on the Congress Street Bridge. Reborn after a $28 million makeover, the attraction features historically accurate replicas of two of the Tea Party ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, which were modified from wooden fishing vessels.”
More at the Globe.
Photograph: Christopher Klein for the Boston Globe
Costumed volunteers at Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum where they toss crates of tea into the harbor.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged boston tea party, Christopher Klein, fort point channel, john crane, no taxation without representation, reenactment | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2012 by suzannesmom
Here’s another nice story about using the arts to inspire kids who are turned off by school in troubled districts.
Writes Patricia Cohen at the NY Times, “Stationed in front of one of his large self-portraits, the artist Chuck Close raised his customized wheelchair to balance on two wheels, seeming to defy the laws of gravity. The chair’s unlikely gymnastics underlined the points that Mr. Close was making to his audience, 40 seventh and eighth graders from Bridgeport, Conn.: Break the rules and use limitations to your advantage.
“The message had particular resonance for these students, and a few educators and parents, who had come by bus on Monday from Roosevelt School to the Pace Gallery in Chelsea for a private tour of Mr. Close’s show. Roosevelt, located in a community with high unemployment and crushing poverty, recently had one of the worst records of any school in the state, with 80 percent of its seventh graders testing below grade level in reading and math.
“Saved from closure by a committed band of parents, the school was one of eight around the country chosen last year to participate in Turnaround Arts, a new federally sponsored public-and-private experiment that puts the arts at the center of the curriculum.”
Read about the reactions of the students — and more at the NY Times.
Photograph: Kirsten Luce for the NY Times
The artist Chuck Close giving a private tour of his show to students from Bridgeport, Conn.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alternative, Bridgeport, chuck close, connecticut, education, failing schools, learning, pace gallery, Patricia Cohen, roosevelt school, turnaround arts | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2012 by suzannesmom
Deanna Isaacs has a funny post at the Chicago Reader. It’s about the Storefront Playwright Project.
“Tired of sitting around watching paint dry?” she asks.
“Then get yourself over to 72 E. Randolph, where, thanks to the League of Chicago Theatres and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, you can watch a real, live writer at work.
“The Storefront Playwright Project is putting 27 authors on exhibit this month in the big front window at Hot Tix/Expo 72.
“Never mind that writing is right up there with sleeping as a potential spectator sport, so stimulating that the writer him- or herself often has to bring the action to a complete stop in order to check e-mail, clean a closet, or book a flight and get the hell out of there. …
“Guessing that dramatists would be more dynamic at work than, say, novelists (readily observed in deep rumination at most any coffee shop), I stopped by last week, when Emilio Williams was on display.
“The playwrights each take a four-hour shift. Williams was a couple hours into his afternoon stint, gamely focused on his laptop, which was perched on a small white table and hooked into a large screen mounted in the window. The big screen faces outward, allowing passersby a look at the creative product the instant it emerges from the writer’s brain. …
“Behind the glass, Williams pursed his lips and crossed his ankles. …
“He leaned his chin on his hand and scrolled through several pages of dialogue that went something like this:
“Mar: Done?
“Ted: Yep.
“Mar: You don’t sound very enthusiastic.
“Williams paused.
“He blinked.
“He scrolled again.
“And then, it happened!
“On the big screen, before my very eyes, the cursor hesitated. It stopped. And it backed up, deleting as it went, wiping out ‘tucitcennoC’ and replacing it with ‘Lake Geneva.’ ” More from Deanna, even funnier.
Readers may recall several posts I wrote on a playwriting class I took the summer before last. (For example, here.) I thought the class got playwriting out of my system. Should I reconsider now that playwrights have the opportunity to sit in storefronts where strangers can watch them think?
Um, maybe not.
Photograph: The Chicago Reader
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Chicago, Chicago Reader, creativity, Deanna Isaacs, Deb Clapp, drama, Emilio Williams, League of Chicago Theatres, playwright, Storefront Playwright Project, theater, window | 2 Comments »
December 19, 2012 by suzannesmom
How much fun would this be: to sit next to a music group that uses improvised passages, and to write a words on scraps of paper indicating how you would like to hear the next bit played, and to hear the words take shape as sound?
That is what NY Times critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim got to do recently, and I have to say, I admire her word choices.
“On a recent rainy afternoon,” she writes, “I was sitting at an old-fashioned desk in a bare concrete loft in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, listening intently to the members of So Percussion, joined by Grey McMurray on electric guitar, rehearse a composition called ‘Toothbrush.’ …
“I was busy tearing scraps of paper out of my notebook and scribbling words on them. ‘Feathery,’ for example, and, ‘Question everything,’ and, ‘You want to dance.’
“Then I would dash over and deliver my note to one of the players and hear it translated into sound or action.
“ ‘Toothbrush’ is an otherwise fully composed and notated piece featuring instrumental music, singing and spoken dialogue — plus one silent participant who sits onstage listening and writing down notes that become in-the-moment instructions for players to improvise on. …
“Next to me, Adam Sliwinski was tapping out a crisp rhythm on a tom-tom with one hand and on a tambourine and wooden plank with the other. ‘With Outrage,’ I scribbled on a scrap of paper and placed it in his field of vision. Almost immediately, mallets went flying in an explosion of angry energy.” More here.
I want to try this. Just need to find a willing musician.
Photograph: Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Jason Treuting rehearsing with So Percussion.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Sliwinski, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, Emily Johnson, Grey McMurray, Hiroyuki Ito, improvise, Jason Treuting, music, so percussion, toothbrush | Leave a Comment »
December 18, 2012 by suzannesmom
A Little Free Library has come to Cambridge.
Writes Jan Gardner at the Sunday Globe, “About a block from the Cambridge Public Library, its Lilliputian cousin is perched atop a post on the sidewalk. At this Little Free Library, open since mid-October, there are no due dates, late fees, or library cards. Made out of recycled wood, it consists of a single shelf that holds about 20 books.
“The library’s founders are Laura Roberts and Ed Belove who put it in front of their house at 1715 Cambridge St. so they can keep an eye on it. …
“Sabrina Françon, a student at the nearby Harvard Graduate School of Design, sees the Little Free Library as an example of tactical urbanism, a trend she is studying. She wants to determine whether small playful citizen projects like the Little Free Library influence a neighborhood’s social capital.” Roberts reports to Françon what she sees from the window.
“The little library had its origins on Facebook. A friend of Roberts posted a message about Little Free Library, a nonprofit that started in Wisconsin three years ago. Founder Todd Bol built the first library in tribute to his late mother, a book lover.”
More from the Globe. You may also want to read my earlier post on the concept here. By the way, have you ever noticed that the Globe posts weekday articles fast, but Sunday Globe articles like this one may wait until Tuesday.
Photograph: Laura Roberts
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books, Ed Belove, Jan Gardner, Laura Roberts, libraries, Little Free Library, reading, Sabrina Françon, tactical urbanism | 2 Comments »
December 17, 2012 by suzannesmom
Suzanne says I have an art esthetic. That makes me laugh.
My esthetic, as far as I can tell, is mostly a preference for painting that is wavy: Charles Burchfield, Virginia Lee Burton, Grant Wood, Marsden Hartley, Kate Knapp, Edvard Munch, Reginald Marsh.
A massive mural by one of my wavy favorites, Thomas Hart Benton, has recently been rescued from storage. Carol Vogel has the story in the NY Times.
“On New Year’s Day 1931, a new and radically different building opened amid the town houses of West 12th Street: Joseph Urban’s International-Style New School for Social Research, with one room in particular as a star attraction. Thomas Hart Benton, the American realist painter, had lined the third-floor boardroom with nine panels of what would be a 10-panel mural, ‘America Today,’ depicting a panoply of pre-Depression American types, from flappers to farmers, steel workers to stock market tycoons. Lloyd Goodrich, a prominent art historian, pronounced it a breakthrough that heralded a new approach to mural painting, ‘of actually taking reality and making mural art directly out of it.’
“Eight decades later, ‘America Today,’ now considered one of the most important and famous examples of American scene painting, is languishing in storage. That will change, however, because AXA Equitable, the insurance company that bought it nearly 30 years ago, has decided to donate it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. …
“The only problem,” writes Vogel, “is that the museum is so squeezed for space that the mural’s first public appearance after the handover won’t be until at least 2015, when the Met takes over the Whitney Museum of American Art’s landmark Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue (after the Whitney’s move to the meatpacking district).” More.
Something to look forward to in 2015.
Photograph: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged america today, art, artist, AXA Equitable, Carol Vogel, great depression, joseph urban, Lloyd Goodrich, Metropolitan Museum of Art, mural, painting, thomas hart benton | 2 Comments »
December 16, 2012 by suzannesmom
An editorial in the NY Times earlier this month praised the efforts of a Long Island organization committed to rescuing a lovely, endangered body of water.
The editorial said that in Shinnecock Bay, “pollution from fertilizer and septic runoff feeds frequent algae blooms that block oxygen and sunlight. … Once-lush beds of eelgrass, shelter for the little fish that feed bigger ones, have largely disappeared from the western part of the bay.”
But there is hope. “What Shinnecock Bay has going for it are scientists working to restore its waters and tidal flats to health. The Shinnecock Bay Restoration Program, run by Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and its Institute for Ocean Conservation Science, means to fix the problem, not just study it.
“The institute’s executive director, Dr. Ellen Pikitch, said a big part of the job was as simple as replanting eelgrass and seeding the bay with clams and oysters, which filter the water clean and make the bay better able to fend for itself. … Local officials were doing their part by agreeing to close sections of the bay to shellfishing.”
More on what is being done now and ideas for even bigger efforts here. The program could serve as a model for sustainability elsewhere in the world. And we can all do our bit by using less fertilizer and thinking first before putting pollutants down our drains.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged clams, ecology, eelgrass, Ellen Pikitch, environment, grass, Institute for Ocean Conservation Science, Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, shellfishing, shinnecock bay, sustainable | Leave a Comment »
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