I want to give you a quick update on this post, where I described going to the Boston Film Festival and seeing a wonderful documentary about Gene Sharp.
Sharp is an elderly man in East Boston whose writings on nonviolent revolution have helped to overthrow repressive regimes around the world. The film is not being shown in theaters, so try to catch it tonight on television. It’s at 9 p.m. on the American network Current TV.
In an e-mail, Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute writes, “Last Tuesday evening, the documentary made its television debut in Australia on public television station SBS Australia. The television station has also made the film available on the station’s website for internet users in Australia. It will continue to be viewable for this limited audience until November 26, 2011.”
This morning at Porter Square, none of the escalators were working. As I walked down the long staircase into the subway, I heard music. That is not unusual. We commuters often get to hear a busker or a group of musicians at Porter Square, some of them truly outstanding. Today as I descended I thought I heard opera.
It was indeed opera. Baritone Wesley Ray Thomas had set up his boom box and was performing “It Was You” from Verdi’s “Masked Ball.” When I say “performing,” I mean that not only was he singing beautifully but acting. Very emotional. I waited for a train to go by so I could hear the whole piece.
I asked for Thomas’s card, which gives his MySpace site, but when I poked around on YouTube, I found much more.
It turns out that not only is Thomas an opera singer, but being partly American Indian, he participates in the singing at PowWows and other traditional events.
I highly recommend this six-minute video. (The subway location shown is Porter Square.)
8/1/14 Update: Read new Globe story on what the opera guy has had to overcome in life, here.
We’re hopping an early Acela train Wednesday to join Suzanne, Erik, and other family members for Thanksgiving.
I’m assigned to make cranberry sauce, stuffing, and a squash dish. Although I have already placed my ingredients order and can’t use the recipe I just saw at another WordPress blog, you might like to. It’s a maple-citrus-ginger-cranberry sauce.
The blog in question is the public face of a collaboration in Upstate New York, the “From Scratch Club”: “We are a small group of women, living within the Capital Region of NYS (Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs) striving for a sustained connection to the whole food we, our loved ones, and our communities consume.
“We meet twice a month for food swaps, and maybe even a food-related adventure, field trip, cheesemaking party or potluck. Once a month we participate in community outreach at various local farmers markets in our area.”
These ladies understand that the key to enjoying great cooking is to have others to share the results with.
Consider Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is mostly about preparing lots of food and bringing groups of people together to eat the food and talk and not rush off to anything.
This year at Suzanne’s, my sister and her husband will join the fun. Also Erik’s cousin and her family, who have just relocated from Sweden to the U.S. It’s great that little kids will be part of the festivities.
Remember this post on paper sculptures of dragons and other animals left surreptitiously at libraries in the UK?
Well, I thought you might like this post from WordPress blogger Tokyo Bling. It features paper dragons by Siryu. More pictures here, with explanations for readers who speak Japanese.
And here’s yet another origami artist at work on a dragon.
Jim Dwyer writes in his About New York column, “Until a few weeks ago, Jay Hunter Morris had spent much of his early 40s in the invisible universe of the backup opera singer, a life that included selling Rollerblades in Central Park and passing out towels at gyms.
“Then he got The Call.
“ ‘We were in a rehearsal room, doing the understudy rehearsal,’ Mr. Morris said.
“Waiting for him was Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Gelb needed a tenor, and fast, to take on what people in opera say is one of the most demanding roles ever written: Siegfried, the hero of the third part of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle, a five-and-a-half-hour production. The role had eaten up two tenors before opening night, with the second falling ill with less than two weeks to go. …
“ ‘Mr. Gelb looked me in the eye and said, “Can you do this?” ‘ Mr. Morris recalled. ‘I said, “Yes, I can.” ‘ He nodded … “O.K., I’m going to give you a chance.” ‘ ”
A star was born.
P.S. Got any young stars graduating from the middle school musical to, say, community theater? Consider a gift like this one from Suzanne’s company, Luna & Stella.
Thousands of languages are becoming extinct as the last of the people who speak them die off.
In a race against time, some determined souls who value the richness and insights that individual languages provide are making efforts to save as many minority languages as possible. We posted about that here.
Today National Public Radio had a feature on another approach to preservation, the Liet International Song Contest.
“Auditions are now underway for next May’s Eurovision Song Contest — that often-ridiculed television spectacle that has drawn millions of viewers around the world every year since 1956. In 2012 the host country will be Azerbaijan, since that country fielded last year’s winner. The show’s performers rely on outlandish costumes, dance moves and gimmicks to grab attention because most viewers can’t understand what they’re singing. But language is at the heart of another Eurovision-sponsored song and performance competition this weekend in Italy. The Liet International Song Contest is a very serious attempt to keep some of the continent’s neglected languages alive.”
Michelle Aldredge once again introduces me to an artist I knew nothing about. Check out her wonderful post about the artist Slinkachu at her blog, Gwarlingo.
Like Banksy, Slinkachu is part of the London street art scene, Aldredge writes, but “is everything Banksy is not — subtle, empathic, poignant, contemplative.”
I won’t try to replicate her post but will just mention that I especially like “The House of God” and “Dreams of Packing it All In.”
The photos are copyrighted by Slinkachu. If he doesn’t consider this “fair use,” I can take them down.
Update: He is in NYC until tomorrow, Oct. 7, 2012. Read up, here.
From the Boston Globe comes a curious bit of research suggesting that videogames may allow people to “burn off the desire or the time to commit a crime.” Across U.S. counties from 1994 to 2004, a greater number of videogame stores is associated with less arson, car theft, robbery, and mortality.
Don’t you love counterintuitive findings like that? Does it mean that fantasy (or “Queen Mab” as Charles Dickens contended in Hard Times) continues to play a valuable role in our lives? Read about the research here.
And while we are on the subject, the Innovators Insights listserv linked to an article on how playing a videogame has assisted city planners in their work.
“IBM has partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop CityOne, a game simulation that provides city planners with an interactive tool to help them investigate complex energy and water interactions, learning how best to achieve certain performance goals under budget. Outside of the U.S., the tool has been used by governments in China, France, and South America.” Read more here.
These are just a couple examples. As Jane McGonigal, the author of Reality is Broken has written, today videogames are being used to “change the world.”
My grandmother Mabel (called Garkie by my family as the result of a gross parental misinterpretation of my infantile diction) sometimes gave tea parties. In one tea-party story, my toddler self ate all the lemons, and Garkie had to keep going to the kitchen to get more for the ladies — my mother apologizing, and Garkie saying, “No, no. I have plenty more.”
A love of citrus is an inherited trait in my family. And since it runs in my daughter-in-law’s family, too, my grandson is doubly blessed, you might say. (I’m eating the lemons in my tea as I write.)
I spent four months reading MobyDick in 2010, and I must say that for me there was way too much information about different kinds of ropes, how to cut up a whale, and the categories of seagoing creatures. I could not figure out why people I admire read MobyDickover and over.
So, avast! There is now a way for people like me to grasp the essence of Herman Melville’s classic. It’s a one-man show performed by the Irish actor Conor Lovett, who — along with his wife and director, Judy Hegarty Lovett — adapted the book’s highlights.
ArtsEmerson presented this wonder in Boston recently, and I’m in awe.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the actor in his Ishmael role has the stunned, wounded look of Tommy Smothers (remember the insecure brother in the 1970s comedy duo?), Conor is heartbreaking. His facial expressions and body language before he speaks Melville’s famous opening, “Call me Ishmael,” convey a haunted man, one who, like Coleridge’s ancient mariner, has witnessed mysteries beyond human understanding and feels condemned to tell the story to anyone who will listen. His look says, Why was I spared? Why did I choose this voyage? Why did I listen to the prophetic mad sailor Elijah on a wintry Nantucket dock and still choose to sail on the cursed Pequod?
The production is full of dark musings, the roars of a crazed Captain Ahab, and the savagely raging elements of air, water, and fire. But at the outset, stage time is lovingly devoted to the humorous side of Ishmael searching for New Bedford lodgings, having to bunk with the “harponeer” Queeqeg, and learning to recognize the interior decency behind the mask of the “cannibal.”
That the novel is deep is clearer to me now. I’m still pondering Ahab’s speech about whaleness being merely the “mask” that MobyDick wears. When the devout first mate Starbuck says it’s wrong to seek revenge against a whale that is merely a dumb beast — a creature of God — Ahab counters that beneath the mask is an infinitely malevolent force that must be conquered at all costs. We never feel sure what this force is supposed to be. Satan? Then why do the natural elements seem to take the side of the whale? I’m still wondering why we never learn if the whale dies or lives to wreak havoc another day.
But at last I see why people admire this book. Read more here.
P.S. The play is part of Imagine Ireland, “a year of Irish arts in America.” Check it out.
I’ve been attending the annual Scandinavian Fair ever since Erik came into our lives. Although he has yet to be in town when it has taken place, it’s OK. He may not feel a need to be more Scandinavian than he already is.
The Scandinavian Fair is a real happening — “sui generis to a fault,” as the humorist S.J. Perelman might have said. Definitely the place to go if you have inadvertently run out of glögg.
Update 11/13/14: This year’s fair is Saturday, November 15, at Concord Carlisle High School, Walden Street, Concord, MA, starting at 10 a.m.
My workplace closes down on Veterans Day, so today my husband and I finally got a chance to visit the new Art of the Americas wing at the Museum of Fine Arts.
I didn’t realize that people bring cameras to museums now and take pictures of whatever they like. Is that allowed? For this post, I wanted to use a particular painting I saw today, but after trying the MFA site and searching the Internet, all I could find was a bootlegged photo for sale at Flickr. Fortunately, I did buy an MFA postcard that I was able to photograph at home.
This is a Louis Comfort Tiffany-designed stained glass window of parakeets and a goldfish bowl.
My favorite floor was the third, though. There we saw some great 20th Century art: Calder mobiles, a Jackson Pollock, works by Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, the photographer Weegie, and more. Although the MFA also has a new gallery of contemporary art in a different part of the building, I liked the selections on the third floor of the Americas wing best.
At lunch we ate in the new dining area, a large, beautiful space that combines both classical and modern styles comfortably and features a tall, green, glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly.
There’s a new think tank at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, one that’s focused on food access.
Food access, food “deserts,” and sustainable agriculture are big issues these days, and Food Sol founder Rachel Greenberger believes that addressing the challenges must involve bringing together all the stakeholders, even agribusiness.
Greenberger refers to her strategy as the “uncommon table,” writes Kathleen Pierce in the Boston Globe. “Located at Babson’s Social Innovation Lab, the company seeks to identify how so-called food deserts — geographical areas without access to a grocery store or fresh food — are formed, and how to make healthy food sustainable for all. …
“Greenberger, a 33-year-old Babson MBA graduate who studied food-system dynamics and consumer behavior in the sustainable food movement, came up with the concept for a company similar to a think tank, but centered on action. By creating a digital map to pinpoint food-related issues, Food Sol intends to highlight pressing topics such as food deserts and fair trade, linking experts in the field with would-be entrepreneurs to ignite working relationships. …
“Food Sol intends to foster ‘a way into thinking about innovation in the food-supply chain, whether it’s creating more cooperatives or building agribusiness in Fall River,’ says Cheryl Kiser [executive director of Babson’s innovation lab]. ‘We are a laboratory where people can come and engage in conversation.’ ”
The theory is that companies will pay to engage in a food think tank like this. In fact, Kiser hopes to involve Cargill Inc., Monsanto Co. , PepsiCo , the Coca-Cola Co., and more. Read more here.
The mention of entrepreneurs who might address food issues is reminding me of two young women who recently launched shipping-container grocery stores in food deserts. Read about that in this NY Times article.
“Carrie Ferrence, 33, and Jacqueline Gjurgevich, 32, were in business school at Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington State when they noticed that many local neighborhoods were ‘food deserts,’ without easy access to fresh local produce and other grocery staples.
“Their answer was StockBox Grocers, a company that repurposes old shipping containers as small grocery stores. The company won $12,500 in a local business plan competition and raised more than $20,000 online in a Kickstarter campaign to finance its first store, which opened in the Delridge neighborhood of Seattle in September.”
In a Yes!magazine op-ed, reprinted in the Christian Science Monitor, Marc Freedman of Civic Ventures writes about his favorite topic: the potential of older Americans to contribute beyond retirement.
“With big thinking,” he writes, “there is a chance to tap the talents and experience of the ‘baby boom’ generation to solve longstanding social problems, from health care to homelessness, education to the environment. There is a chance to turn an older population into a new workforce for social change.
“Some people, like Gary Maxworthy, are leading the way … [Around age 60] he thought a lot about his old Peace Corps dream and the prospect of returning to it. In the end, he chose a more manageable domestic option, VISTA, part of the AmeriCorps national service program. VISTA placed Maxworthy at the San Francisco Food Bank, where he discovered that—like food banks throughout the state of California—it was primarily giving out canned and processed food. It was all they could reliably deliver without food spoiling.
“Maxworthy knew that California farmers were discarding tons of blemished but wholesome fruits and vegetables that were not up to supermarket standards. He launched Farm to Family, a program that in 2010 distributed more than 100 million pounds of fresh food to needy families in California.” Read more.
For those who are interested in “encore careers,” check out Encore.org, by Civic Ventures, “a nonprofit think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.”
When Suzanne started the birthstone-jewelry business Luna & Stella a few years ago, I didn’t make the connection right away.
Suzanne never knew my grandmother Mabel, but Mabel (the woman I called Garkie from an early age) was also an entrepreneur, best known for jellies like Cinnama-Tang and for jewelry. I remember seeing her on black & white daytime television in New York when she was interviewed about her ventures.
My cousin Margot was going through the personal items of my late Aunt Maggie (Margot’s mother and Garkie’s daughter) and unearthed articles and artifacts. Here are samples. Styles have changed, but the urge to sell something creative has not.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 