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Do Not Toss That Cimabue

January 25, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.
This valuable painting, called “The Mocking of Christ,” is by the 13th century Florentine artist Cimabue. It came close to being thrown away when a house in France was getting cleared out.

When the consignment guy comes to help with your lifetime downsizing, he naturally hopes to uncover some neglected item that turns out to be extremely valuable. That would have been OK with me, but the process went more in the opposite direction. Things I always thought were valuable, we couldn’t even give away for free.

Still, one always enjoys someone else’s discovery, like the one in today’s story. …

“Scott Reyburn reports at the New York Times, “A medieval painting that hung for years near the kitchen of an older Frenchwoman before being recognized as a work by the Italian artist Cimabue was auctioned [in October] in France for $26.8 million.

“The work was bought by the London-based dealer Fabrizio Moretti against competition from at least six other bidders.

” ‘I bought it on behalf of two collectors,’ Mr. Moretti said in an interview immediately after the auction. ‘It’s one of the most important old master discoveries in the last 15 years. Cimabue is the beginning of everything. He started modern art. When I held the picture in my hands, I almost cried.’ …

“The 10-inch-high poplar panel was discovered in June during a valuation of the contents of the house of an older Frenchwoman near Compiègne, north of Paris. Thought by the family to be an icon, the painting hung on a wall next to the kitchen.

“ ‘I had a rare emotion with this little painting, almost indescribable,’ said Philomène Wolf of [auction house] Actéon, who had made the discovery. ‘In our profession, we know that this emotion was the result of a great master.’ …

“Actéon consulted Eric Turquin, the Paris-based art expert on old masters, who collaborated on the sale of the painting. … Mr. Turquin said his research identified the Compiègne panel as ‘the only small-scale work of devotion to have been recently added to the catalog of authentic works by Cimabue.’ It was described as being in ‘excellent general condition.’

“ ‘This was an easy sale,’ Mr. Turquin said, comparing the auction of the Cimabue to the canceled public sale in June of the ‘Judith and Holofernes’ attributed to Caravaggio. ‘I was pleased at 10 million and tremendously happy at 15 million,’ he said of the Cimabue sale. ‘The price was more than I could have dreamed, and there was a contemporary art gallery bidding, which was new for us.’

“According to Mr. Turquin, ‘The Mocking of Christ’ was part of the same late-13th-century altarpiece that once included Cimabue’s similarly sized ‘Flagellation of Christ,’ now in the Frick Collection in New York, and the ‘Madonna and Child Enthroned Between Two Angels,’ now in the National Gallery in London.

“The Frick acquired its Cimabue in 1950. The ‘Madonna and Child’ was scheduled to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2000, but was sold to the National Gallery by private treaty for about 7.2 million pounds, about $10.8 million. …

“Traces of the original framing, the style and technique of the gold ornamentation and the pattern of wormholes on the back of the Cimabue panel ‘confirm that these panels made up the left side of the same diptych,’ Mr. Turquin said in a pre-auction statement.

“Cimabue pioneered a more fluent and naturalistic style of figure painting in Italy. … The Florence painter takes up the first biography in Giorgio Vasari’s hugely influential Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1550. Vasari describes how Cimabue emancipated himself from the ‘stiff manner’ of Byzantine artists and was ‘the first cause of the revival of painting’ before Giotto ‘overshadowed his renown.’ ”

More at the Times, here. If you enjoy this kind of story, see also the Guardian take on a neglected Botticelli, here.

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Innovation for Deaf Opera Goers

January 24, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s SoundShirts use “patterns and pulses” to make opera more accessible for the deaf.

It used to be that, for people with a disability, there were certain experiences they knew they would probably never access. With technology, that is changing. Consider how “feeling” the music in new, more subtle ways is helping those with hearing loss.

Michael Andor Brodeur reports at the Washington Post about the SoundShirt.

“Opera is everything all at once: music and drama, poetry and dance, grandeur and intimacy, spectacle and sound. This all-encompassing aspect makes it one of the most accessible art forms yet one of the most challenging to make accessible.

“For audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are blind or have low vision, attending an opera can be a deeply frustrating experience.

“A pilot program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is trying on a new approach for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to experience opera: the SoundShirt, a jacketlike garment equipped with 16 haptic actuators* that transmit sound from the orchestra and stage into pulses, vibrations and other forms of haptic feedback in the shirt itself. …

“In addition to accommodations for mobility disabilities such as ramps and wheelchair seating, like many opera houses, the Lyric offers performances with American Sign Language interpretation, projected subtitles, and assisted listening devices for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons. For blind people and those with low vision, the Lyric provides Braille and large-print programs, audio-described performances, high-powered glasses and pre-performance ‘touch tours,’ allowing audience members to feel various props, costumes and surfaces before the curtain rises.

“The SoundShirt, though, is cut from a different cloth than most accessibility technology, providing a mediated experience of the music that registers as physical and personal.

‘It doesn’t re-create the experience of listening to music,’ [director of digital initiatives Brad Dunn] says. ‘It’s its own thing.’

” ‘It translates the music into a different sensory experience that can be felt by people. And what I’ve seen through all of the early testing that we did is that audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing have responded very viscerally to it.’ …

“For attendees at a Lyric production of West Side Story earlier this year, input from the SoundShirt didn’t just help provide additional detail to the performance — it also illuminated the musical spaces in between, the interludes and interstitial passages of music, the overtures overloaded with crucial cues. Dunn recalls one tester’s eyes welling up with tears after the performance. …

“Lyric’s SoundShirt project was launched in partnership with the city of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities (MOPD), but the garment itself was designed by CuteCircuit, a London-based wearable technology design firm. …

“At the Lyric, an array of microphones positioned over various sections of the orchestra feeds audio information to a central computer. Dunn and his crew adapt the software to respond to the specific instrumentation of a given piece. … Those audio signals are divided across seven channels, each mapped to one of 16 different ‘zones’ on the SoundShirt, where motifs and melodies register as patterns and pulses across the garment’s 16 actuators.

“Thus, for a production of The Flying Dutchman, the violins and cellos are assigned to trigger haptic feedback along the right and left shoulders and upper arms. Timpani and bass, meanwhile, are sent down to the lower torso and hips. Wagner’s mighty horns are split across the upper arms like goose bumps, while vocals register at the wrists like a pulse. …

“Rachel Arfa is a longtime disability advocate and civil rights attorney who serves as commissioner of MOPD. As a deaf person who wears bilateral cochlear implants, the issue of accessibility has been close to her heart for a long time. … But while expanding accessibility is her life’s work, Arfa also knows that good intentions can often pave the road to nowhere.

“ ‘When Lyric approached me with this shirt, I was highly skeptical,’ Arfa said via email. [But she] agreed to test the SoundShirt at a recent Lyric production of West Side Story. Arfa was surprised to find the shirt actually felt like a good fit for the problem it is trying to solve. …

“ ‘I began to understand that the haptics on the SoundShirt vibrated in conjunction with the orchestra sounds. One example is when string instruments were played, the haptics followed the pitch and rhythm. A second example is when a singer was singing a long melody, the haptics picked up on this and I could experience this through the vibration. I am not able to hear this sound, but I could feel it. It was such a surprise and a thrill.’

“Tina Childress, an audiologist who lives in Champaign, Ill., is a late-deafened adult who wears cochlear implants and works as an advocate for accessibility in the arts. … Childress appreciated the haptic feedback at the wrists to indicate dialogue, and the way the shirt clarified the various elements of the score. After intermission, she lent the shirt to another audience member to try out. ‘I didn’t realize how much I was using it until I didn’t have it.’ ”

More at the Post, here. Axios Chicago has still more, here.

* haptic actuators are gizmos that provide localized bodily sensations and tactile effects

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A Thank You

January 24, 2024 by suzannesmom

Be sure to check out the writings of Laurie Graves. Maya and the Book of Everything is the first in her Great Library fantasy series. Lots of food for thought there.

The blogger and creator of the Great Library fantasy series, Laurie Graves, was kind enough to call out my posts on climate change, and I want to thank her here. She wrote at her blog Notes from the Hinterland, hinterlands.me, that her friend at “Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog shares inspiring articles from around the world about people who are making a difference. The focus isn’t always on climate change — although sometimes it is — but the pieces always illustrate the power of creativity and how people can band together to do good things. When they want to. The time has come when we should all want to.”

Can’t disagree with that! Thank you, Laurie.

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Alas, the Mexican Salamander!

January 23, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: LaDameBucolique.
A Mexican Salamander in captivity.

People who put development before the natural environment are known to wax indignant at protections for small critters like the snail darter fish or the northern spotted owl. But what happens to the smallest of these effects us, too. Today’s article explains about pollution and the Mexican salamander.

The Associated Press (AP) reported on November 25th “Ecologists from Mexico’s National Autonomous University on Friday relaunched a fundraising campaign to bolster conservation efforts for axolotls, a native, endangered fish-like type of salamander.

“The campaign, called Adoptaxolotl, asks people for as little as 600 pesos (about $35) to virtually adopt one of the tiny ‘water monsters.’ Virtual adoption comes with live updates on your axolotl’s health. For less money, donors can buy a virtual dinner for one of the creatures, which are relatively popular pets in the US.

“In Mexican axolotls’ main habitat, the population density has plummeted 99.5% in under two decades, according to scientists behind the fundraiser.

“Last year’s Adoptaxolotl campaign raised just more than 450,000 pesos ($26,300) towards an experimental captive-breeding program and efforts to restore habitat in the ancient Aztec canals of Xochimilco, a southern borough of Mexico City.

“Still, there are not enough resources for thorough research, said Alejandro Calzada, an ecologist surveying less well-known species of axolotls for the government’s environment department. …

Despite the creature’s recent rise to popularity, almost all 18 species of axolotl in Mexico remain critically endangered, threatened by encroaching water pollution, a deadly amphibian fungus and non-native rainbow trout.

“While scientists could once find 6,000 axolotls on average per square kilometer in Mexico, there are now only 36, according to the National Autonomous University’s latest census. A more recent international study found less than 1,000 Mexican axolotls left in the wild.

“Luis Zambrano González, one of the university’s scientists announcing the fundraiser, told the Associated Press he hopes to begin a new census (the first since 2014) in March.”Luis Zambrano González, one of the university’s scientists announcing the fundraiser, told the Associated Press he hopes to begin a new census (the first since 2014) in March.

“ ‘There is no more time for Xochimilco,’ said Zambrano. ‘The “invasion” of pollution is very strong: soccer fields, floating dens. It is very sad.’

“Without data on the number and distribution of different axolotl species in Mexico, it is hard to know how long the creatures have left, and where to prioritize what resources are available. …

“Axolotls have grown into a cultural icon in Mexico for their unique, slimy appearance and uncanny ability to regrow limbs. Scientists in labs around the world think this healing power could hold the secret to tissue repair and even cancer recovery.

“In the past, government conservation programs have largely focused on the most popular species: the Mexican axolotl, found in Xochimilco. But other species can be found across the country, from tiny streams in the valley of Mexico to the northern Sonora desert.

“Mexico City’s expanding urbanization has damaged the water quality of the canals, while in lakes around the capital rainbow trout, which escape from farms, can displace axolotls and eat their food.”

More at AP via the Guardian, here, and at Wikipedia, here.

Invasive species that eat the food of native species are a problem everywhere. In a turtle presentation last week I learned that the red-eared slider, one of the 100 most invasive species in the world, is such a problem turtle that environmentalists often recommend killing it in the freezer. Sometimes called the “pet shop turtle,” it is an invasive pest in many parts of the world, making it hard for other turtles to survive.

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Go Solar, But Don’t Cut Trees

January 22, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Imagine China via AP Images.
A solar-covered parking lot at the plant of Anhui Quanchai Engine Co., Ltd. in Chuzhou, China.

We have to keep a close watch on our innovations, even the ones we think are good. Take solar. Sometimes you read about aggressive solar companies decimating wooded lots to build an array. What? Trees are even better than solar at fighting global warming.

Let’s consider places where solar doesn’t harm anything. How about over a parking lot?

Richard Conniff writes at YaleEnvironment 360, “Fly into Orlando, Florida, and you may notice a 22-acre solar power array in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head in a field just west of Disney World. Nearby, Disney also has a 270-acre solar farm of conventional design on former orchard and forest land. Park your car in any of Disney’s 32,000 parking spaces, on the other hand, and you won’t see a canopy overhead generating solar power (or providing shade) — not even if you snag one of the preferred spaces for which visitors pay up to $50 a day.

“This is how it typically goes with solar arrays: We build them on open space rather than in developed areas. That is, they overwhelmingly occupy croplands, arid lands, and grasslands, not rooftops or parking lots, according to a global inventory published last month in Nature. In the United States, for instance, roughly 51 percent of utility-scale solar facilities are in deserts; 33 percent are on croplands; and 10 percent are in grasslands and forests. Just 2.5 percent of U.S. solar power comes from urban areas.

“But that doesn’t necessarily make it smarter. Undeveloped land is a rapidly dwindling resource, and what’s left is under pressure to deliver a host of other services we require from the natural world — growing food, sheltering wildlife, storing and purifying water, preventing erosion, and sequestering carbon, among others. And that pressure is rapidly intensifying. By 2050, in one plausible scenario from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), supplying solar power for all our electrical needs could require ground-based solar on 0.5 percent of the total land area of the United States … 10.3 million acres.

“Because it is more efficient to generate power close to customers, some states could end up with as much as five percent of their total land area — and 6.5 percent in tiny Rhode Island — under ground-based solar arrays, according to the NREL study. If we also ask solar power to run the nation’s entire automotive fleet, says Margolis, that adds another 5 million acres. It’s still less than half the 31 million acres of cropland eaten up in 2019 to grow corn for ethanol, a notoriously inefficient climate change remedy.

“The argument for doing it this way can seem compelling: It is cheaper to build on undeveloped land than on rooftops or in parking lots. And building alternative power sources fast and cheap is critical in the race to replace fossil fuels and avert catastrophic climate change. It’s also easier to manage a few big solar farms in an open landscape than a thousand small ones scattered across urban areas.

Despite the green image, putting solar facilities on undeveloped land is often not much better than putting subdivisions there.

“Developers tend to bulldoze sites, ‘removing all of the above-ground vegetation,’ says Rebecca Hernandez, an ecologist at the University of California at Davis. That’s bad for insects and the birds that feed on them. In the Southwest deserts where most U.S. solar farms now get built, the losses can also include ‘1,000-year-old creosote shrubs, and 100-year-old yuccas,’ or worse. The proposed 530-megawatt Aratina Solar Project around Boron, California, for instance, would destroy almost 4,300 western Joshua trees, a species imperiled, ironically, by development and climate change. … In California, endangered desert tortoises end up being translocated, with unknown results, says Hernandez. …

“The appeal of parking lots and rooftops, by contrast, is that they are abundant, close to customers, largely untapped for solar power generation, and on land that’s already been stripped of much of its biological value.

“A typical Walmart supercenter, for instance, has a five-acre parking lot, and it’s a wasteland, especially if you have to sweat your way across it under an asphalt-bubbling sun. Put a canopy over it, though, and it could support a three-megawatt solar array, according to a recent study co-authored by Joshua Pearce of Western University in Ontario.

“In addition to providing power to the store, the neighboring community, or the cars sheltered underneath, says Pearce, the canopy would shade customers — and keep them shopping longer, as their car batteries top up. If Walmart did that at all 3,571 of its U.S. super centers, the total capacity would be 11.1 gigawatts of solar power — roughly equivalent to a dozen large coal-fired power plants. Taking account of the part-time nature of solar power, Pearce figures that would be enough to permanently shut down four of those power plants.

“And yet solar canopies are barely beginning to show up in this country’s endless acreage of parking lots. The Washington, D.C., Metro transit system, for instance, has just contracted to build its first solar canopies at four of its rail station parking lots, with a projected capacity of 12.8 megawatts. 

“New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport is now building its first, a 12.3 megawatt canopy costing $56 million. Evansville (Indiana) Regional Airport, however, already has two, covering 368 parking spaces, at a cost of $6.5 million. According to a spokesperson, the solar canopy earned a $310,000 profit in its first year of operation, based on premium pricing of those spaces and the sale of power at wholesale rates to the local utility.

“Rutgers University built one of the largest solar parking facilities in the country at its Piscataway, New Jersey campus, with a 32-acre footprint, an 8-megawatt output, and a business plan that the campus energy conservation manager called ‘pretty much cash-positive from the get-go.’ ”

Lots more info at YaleEnvironment360, here.

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Help for High-Stress Jobs

January 21, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photos: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Commercial fishing is recognized as a high-stress job. Land & Sea Together offers a 24-hour help line and free counseling sessions with Coastline, a Rhode Island-based employee assistance program, for farming, fisheries, and forestry workers and their families.

Because I have never lived very far from the Atlantic, I have long known that the people who go out into deep water to catch the fish we buy are doing dangerous work. Fishermen may be injured handling boats in rough seas. Boats may be lost and the crew never seen again. The stress on families can be beyond belief.

That is why I was interested to read in this ecoRi News article that in Rhode Island, at least, help is available for workers in industries identified as especially stressful.

Bonnie Phillips writes, “Workers in Rhode Island’s farming, fisheries, and forestry [FFF] industries struggle with a number of stressors: the impacts of climate change; workforce issues; business and financial concerns; restrictive regulations, and more.

“Until recently, there were few ways workers in these industries — which have long working hours, often in isolation — could access support, whether financial, emotional, or physical. A new initiative, Land & Sea Together, is working to change that.

“ ‘Farmers and fishermen are among the professions most likely to commit suicide each year, and many more folks suffer silently as they tend their crops, equipment, and vessels,’ according to the organization’s website. Land & Sea aims to ‘reduce stress and build mental and financial resilience in the fisheries, forestry and farming communities’ by building a collaborative network of support services.

“The USDA-funded program, operated through the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and implemented by the Warwick-based Center for Collaboration and Mediation RI, was started in June 2022 with an initial $500,000 USDA grant. …

“To better understand the communities it wanted to help, Land & Sea put together a comprehensive needs assessment, released last December. For the 90-page report, L&ST studied existing data on the FFF industries in Rhode Island; surveyed individuals working in the industries about stressors; and convened a focus group of workers/owners in the industries. …

“Across the three industries, the main causes of stress were similar: financial management concerns; small-business operations; impacts of climate change; the inability to control the weather; labor shortages; succession planning; lack of access to resources; transportation barriers; housing challenges; longer working hours and increased workloads at peak times; and compliance with government regulations, according to the report. …

“Farmers, who often work where they live, said the lack of separation between work and home can blur the lines of family life, which often results in conflicts. And from spring to fall — the growing season — local farmers are under high amounts of stress, the report says, which can be exacerbated by the weather.

“Those in the fishing industry said heavy workloads, time pressure, lack of support due to isolated working conditions, and climate change were their main stressors. Employers in the fishing, aquaculture, and shellfishing industries reported difficulty hiring reliable workers, some of which they attributed to the lack of public transportation, especially in southern Rhode Island, and the difficulty of keeping employees during the winter. …

“A lack of mental health resources and a reluctance to seek help were identified as an issue across the FFF industries. Some employers, the report said, were unaware of available mental health resources they could offer their employees. Others said the nature of some of the jobs — lack of flexibility in the work schedule, uncompensated time off, and lack of insurance — prevented workers from seeking help. …

‘Most people in sea industries view themselves as a cross between Vikings and pirates, and they do not view themselves as people who need help,’ according to the report. …

“Employers interviewed for the report said they did not think their employees would seek help, and said they especially watch out for signs of concern in their younger employees. …

“Land & Sea offers a 24-hour help line and up to 12 free counseling sessions with Coastline EAP, a Rhode Island-based employee assistance program, for FFF workers and their families. Since the launch of the program in June 2022, [Laurel Witri, former director of the program] said, ’60 farming, fisheries, and forestry workers have called for assistance, receiving 286 hours of support with free outpatient services, financial counseling.’ …

“The free, confidential help line with Coastline EAP is 1-800-445-1195, and support is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cape Verde Creole. The National Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 988, available by call or text.“

More at ecoRI News, here. This nonprofit highlights environmental stories that often effect the whole country. It has no paywall, but please consider a donation.

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Surprise Bequest to Small Town

January 20, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: AP via Ed Smith and family of Geoffrey Holt.
Almost no one knew this unassuming man was investing — until his small New Hampshire town got a large bequest.

In today’s story, a quiet man, known locally as a groundskeeper for a trailer park, rises to prominence in a way that would have totally embarrassed him.

Saleen Martin has the story at USA Today. “Community members knew the late Geoffrey Holt to be a reserved man who liked simple things.  What most people didn’t know is that he was sitting on a $3.8 million fortune. Holt died on June 6, leaving millions to his beloved town of Hinsdale, New Hampshire. ..

“Hinsdale Town Administrator Kathryn Lynch said Edwin ‘Smokey’ Smith is Holt’s estate executor. He told town administrators about Holt’s generous donation a few months ago. …

“ ‘The town and other community committees can apply annually for a grant of $150,000 to be used for health, education, culture or recreation,’ she told USA TODAY in an email. … The town is considering using the money for electronic ballot machines since Holt was ‘an avid voter.’ …

“The main thing, she said, is that they want to honor how frugal Holt was and find ways to help people in Hinsdale save money through the town budget.

“Smokey Smith [and Holt] met when Smith ran an insurance company. … ‘He was very reserved,’ Smith said. ‘He liked to be at the back of a group rather than in the front. He got along well with people, but he didn’t want to be the one leading the conversation. If he knew what was going on today with this story … he would be all sorts of embarrassed.’ …

“Holt worked for Agway Corporation in the 1970s. According to his obituary, he was a production manager with the company. When they closed in the 1980s, he received a cash settlement that he chose to invest.

“He also did odd jobs around town when Agway closed. Smith eventually hired him to do some work on his land. … Smith said Holt eventually moved into an apartment he owned and then, a mobile home that he shared with a woman named Thelma Parker. … She died in 2017.

“ ‘She was good for him and he was good for her,’ Smith said. … ‘She helped him be a little more social. They were a good fit. She was the inspiration he needed to keep moving and she had somebody around to help her.’ …

“He had a car when he worked at Agway but sold it. … What Holt seemed to really love was his lawn mower. He’d ride around Smith’s property with his bad leg elevated on the hood of the vehicle, his friend recalled. … ‘He had several places where he trimmed back the brush so that he could sit down there and read magazines, newspapers, just put his foot up and enjoy the brook and nature.’ …

“Holt spent many years in preparatory school when he was younger. … ‘That’s where he learned that if you stay in the background, you stay out of trouble,’ Smith said. … In 1963, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Marlboro College in Vermont and then served in the United States Navy, his obituary reads. 

“He later earned a master’s degree from American International College in Massachusetts in 1968 and then taught social studies and drivers’ education at Thayer High School in Winchester, New Hampshire.

“Smith recalls the day Holt told him about his fortune. It was about 13 years ago. He said his investments had done better than he expected.”

More at USA Today, here.

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Native Storytelling Now on Stage

January 19, 2024 by suzannesmom

Art: Stella Teller.
“Seated Storyteller with Four Children.”

For too long, the dominant culture has missed out on some great storytelling. Gradually that is changing, and indigenous playwrights are part of the change.

Mark Kennedy wrote at the Associated Press (AP), “The financial crisis of 2008 hit Mary Kathryn Nagle differently. As a playwright and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she saw parallels to events that negatively impacted Indigenous people centuries ago.

“Her play Manahatta juxtaposes the recent mortgage meltdown when thousands lost their homes to predatory lenders with the shady 17th-century Dutch who swindled and violently pushed Native Americans off their ancestral lands. …

“Nagle’s 2018 play has landed in New York City at the prestigious Public Theater this winter and it’s just the latest in a flowering of Native storytelling. From Reservation Dogs, Dark Winds and Rutherford Falls on TV to Prey on the big screen and Larissa FastHorse becoming the first Indigenous female playwright on Broadway, barriers are being broken.

“ ‘I hope it’s not a moment. I hope it’s the beginning of an era,’ says FastHorse, a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. …

“ ‘[Most] film studios had never produced any content actually written or produced by Natives. It may have been about some Native people, but it was not written by Native people. And we’ve just seen that flipped on its head,’ Nagle said. …

“Nagle recalls moving to New York in 2010 and asking artistic directors of theaters why they weren’t producing Native work. They would answer that they didn’t know any Native playwrights or that there weren’t enough Native audiences to power ticket sales.

“ ‘Good storytelling is good storytelling, whether the protagonist is white, Black, Asian, LGBTQ — it doesn’t matter,’ said Nagle, who is on the board of IllumiNative, a nonprofit working to deal with the erasure of Native people.

” ‘There’s a lot of projects out there that are changing the narrative and that are proving that our stories are powerful and that non-Natives are really moved by them because they’re good stories.’

“Madeline Sayet, a playwright and professor at Arizona State University who also runs the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, sees the contemporary Native theater movement flowing from the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60s and ’70s and an increase in awareness of Indigenous issues ever since Native people won the right to legally practice their culture, art and religion.

“She connects the Wounded Knee occupation of 1973 to the Standing Rock standoff over the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 to Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S History winning the National Book Award this year.

“Sayet, a member of the Mohegan Tribe who became the first Native playwright produced at the Public when her Where We Belong made it in 2020, said keeping Indigenous stories being produced depends on changing funding structures and getting long-term commitments from theaters and programs like Young Native Playwrights Contest. …

“FastHorse, who made history on Broadway in 2023 with her satirical comedy The Thanksgiving Play, which follows white liberals trying to devise a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play, has since turned her attention to helping rewrite some classic stage musicals to be more culturally sensitive. …

“She has recently reworked the book for an upcoming touring musical revival of the 1954 classic Peter Pan, which was adapted by Jerome Robbins and has a score by Moose Charlap-Carolyn Leigh and additional songs by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

“FastHorse found the character of Peter Pan complex, the pirates funny, the music enchanting but the depictions of Indigenous people and women appalling. There were references to ‘redskins’ throughout, a nonsense song called ‘Ugh-A-Wug’ and Tiger Lily fends off randy braves ‘with a hatchet.’ …

“FastHorse widened the concept of Native in the musical to encompass members of several under-pressure Indigenous cultures from all over the globe — Africa, Japan and Eastern Europe, among them — who have retreated to Neverland to preserve their culture until they can find a way back.

“The playwright said one of her guiding principles in the reworking was to make sure a little Native girl in South Dakota could see herself and celebrate. ‘Then we’ve done our job and she can join the magic instead of having to armor herself against the magic.’ …

“ ‘I think one thing I’m just hoping that people take away from this play is like, “Wow, Native stories are really compelling. Native people are incredible. They’re incredibly resilient. They’re incredibly brilliant. Yes, there’s tragedy, but they have such incredible senses of humor,” ‘ [Nagle] said.

“ ‘I want them to love my characters the way I love them. I want them to feel the heartache. I want them to feel the laughter. I want them to feel the love,’ she said. ‘And I want them to leave the theater just wanting to know more about our tribal nations and our Native people.’ ” More at AP, here.

Got ideas for a show that needs the red pencil of FastHorse? I’d start with Annie Get Your Gun. Come to think of it, that show also needs the red pencil of poor, white mountain people. Their presentation is painful, too.

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Plenty of Clay for Claymation

January 18, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Aardman/Netflix.
A still from Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. The Wallace and Gromit studio reassures fans over rumors of a clay “shortage.”

Here’s a kind of antidote to all the serious things one worries about these days. I myself am an Olympic worrier. For example, when Suzanne went to live in New York after college, I made a little notebook for her, starting with “Things to Worry About in New York City.” (I don’t think it infected her much.)

These days, I worry about the health of people I care about, the war in the Middle East, climate change, the increase in authoritarian governments, Covid, the meanness of our political divide, plastic in the ocean, homelessness, Bangladesh, Burma, Sudan, Ukraine, hungry children, income inequality. And when I don’t know what is going on or why something is happening in my own life, I revert to a childhood way of coping by making up scenarios that are usually off base. Like my scratchy eye means I’m going blind.

So I was delighted to see that there are silly things to worry about. Couldn’t they become a kind of self-inoculation? I guess they would still have to be regarding something you actually cared about. A nice example today is the worry that Wallace and Gromit claymation fans indulged in when they thought there might be a shortage of clay.

Andrew Pulver has the story at the Guardian, the “Wallace and Gromit studio, Aardman Animations, has reassured its fans, and the film industry at large, that production of its popular films will not be grinding to a halt any time soon, saying ‘there is absolutely no need to worry.’

“After reports that the manufacturers of Aardman’s favored modeling clay had gone out of business, meaning the animators had enough supplies for only one more film, Aardman issued a statement on social media saying: ‘We are touched about recent concern over the future of our beloved clay creations, but wanted to reassure fans that there is absolutely no need to worry.’ …

” ‘We have been tinkering away behind the scenes for quite some time with plans in place to ensure a smooth transition to new stocks to continue to make our iconic productions.’

“Aardman is shortly to release Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, a sequel to its hit poultry comedy from 2000, while it is still in production on a new Wallace and Gromit feature, due for release in 2024.” More at the Guardian, here. No paywall.

That’s one worry that can be put to bed. … But wait! The Guardian goes on to say, “In 2005 Aardman lost much of its archive material in a warehouse fire in Bristol.” What? Oh, no!

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Vienna’s Wise Public Housing

January 17, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Richard Conway/Bloomberg CityLab.
The 478-unit Reumannhof, public housing completed in 1926, was named for Vienna’s first Social Democratic mayor, Jakob Reumann.

Making sure all residents have decent housing is a challenge for cities around the globe. Richard Conway at Bloomberg CityLab says Vienna pretty much figured it out in the 1920s. He maintains it’s the reason Vienna is such a livable city today.

“The housing crunch that the growing city of Vienna faced a century ago,” he writes, “might seem strikingly familiar today: Private developers in the Austrian capital were good at building elegant luxury residences and substandard tenements for the poor, but they’d failed to create enough units to allow average residents to live in decent comfort at an affordable price.

“In response, Vienna’s Social Democratic government pursued a solution that modern cities still struggle to emulate: a massive construction program for public housing.

“The municipal apartment complexes they built, known as Gemeindebau, provided new homes at a volume and level of quality never seen before, and rarely seen since. The long-term results not only saw conditions for the average Viennese skyrocket, they also provided a hugely influential example for cities from Moscow to Manhattan.

These cities-within-a-city included medical facilities, schools, libraries, post offices and theater spaces.

“The Viennese Gemeindebau — plural Gemeindebauten — emerged in a city already in flux. Following Austria’s defeat in World War I, the country’s empire had dissolved and its monarchy was replaced by a democracy, in which the Social Democratic Workers Party (SDAPÖ) had the largest number of seats, both nationally and in Vienna. Once in power, the Social Democrats started addressing an issue central to their base: the overcrowding plaguing the new republic’s capital.

“In the 40 years leading up to 1918 … working-class families often lived in tenements known as Bassena, so named after the communal sinks found in their hallways. While they could look grand from the street, six or seven people might pack into a single apartment; often, each household shared a toilet and a sink and lacked electricity or heating beyond coal and wood stoves. They weren’t cheap, either: About 25% of a tenant’s wages went toward monthly rent, according to a 2022 MIT study.

“Starting in 1919 and continuing through to 1934, the Social Democrats launched a series of wide-reaching urban reforms focused on improving living conditions, education and social services. This period of SDAPÖ rule, widely known as Red Vienna, was informed by non-Bolshevik Austro-Marxism, which emphasized democracy, parliamentary politics and public investment. The Gemeindebauten, or municipal housing projects, were born.

“In the early days of the administration, there were two competing types of Gemeindebau. The first was associated with the settler movement: a group of low-income Viennese and refugees displaced from Austria’s fragmenting empire who occupied squatter settlements on the city’s periphery in an era of postwar political and social disruption. Viennese authorities eventually took over these informal communities, formalizing and planning them using elements of the Garden City philosophy.

“It was a second, much more common type of Gemeindebau, however, that came to define Vienna — the superblock-scaled Volkswohnungspaläste (‘people’s apartment palaces’). …

“Neither elaborately decorative like Vienna’s prewar tenements nor strikingly spare like the glass-and-steel apartments of the later International Style, the Gemeindebau often straddled an intriguing line between late 19th historicism and 20th century modernism. …

“Like older tenements, the buildings were typically aligned with streets, accessorized with some decorative features such as fancy brickwork or statuary and grouped around shared common yards. But while Bassena courtyards tended to be narrow, treeless and drab, the huge courtyards of the Gemeindebauten were spacious enough to serve as as combined garden, sports facility and public square, all accessible and sheltered from street noise. …

“In general, the shared areas within the superblocks were in fact as important as the individual homes, reflecting the Viennese administration’s social philosophy. These cities-within-a-city included medical facilities, schools, libraries, post offices and theater spaces. Curved staircases connected large floors — often as many as seven — and spacious landings. …

“The individual apartments, while varying in layout, shared key features. They included a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and some had small entrance hallways inside the front door. Almost all units featured running water, while many had large windows and balconies. Each apartment usually housed an individual family.

“Vienna employed nearly 200 architects to build more than 380 Gemeindebau complexes between the wars, a construction boom that created 60,000 new municipal apartments. In her book The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919-1934, Harvard professor Eve Blau describes how the municipal government was able to do this through expropriation, the use of tax policies to reduce land values and zoning laws. By 1931, it owned a third of the city’s area.

“Working-class citizens might now expect to live in airy apartments and access shared facilities. Indeed, the urban philosophy of Gemeindebauten is neatly captured by a term carved by artist Mario Petrucci into a statue outside a housing project: … ‘Light in the home. Sun in the heart.’ This was more than just a slogan; it represented an entire worldview.”

More at CityLab, here. No paywall. Interesting pictures.

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Older Trees Store Carbon Better

January 16, 2024 by suzannesmom

041217-shadows-stripe-forest-floor

Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Some living things benefit the planet more the older they get.

Those of us who were enthusiastic about planting zillions of trees to store carbon have been learning that the trees need to be part of a healthy ecosystem to do the most good. A collaboration among hundreds of forest ecologists offers keys to what works.

Patrick Greenfield writes at the Guardian, “Forest conservation and restoration could make a major contribution to tackling the climate crisis as long as greenhouse gas emissions are slashed, according to a study.

“By allowing existing trees to grow old in healthy ecosystems and restoring degraded areas, scientists say 226 gigatonnes of carbon could be sequestered, equivalent to nearly 50 years of US emissions for 2022.

But they caution that mass monoculture tree-planting and offsetting will not help forests realize their potential. …

“The research, published [in November] in the journal Nature as part of a collaboration between hundreds of leading forest ecologists, estimates that outside of urban agricultural areas in regions with low human footprints where forests naturally exist, they could draw down large amounts of carbon.

“About 61% of the potential could be realized by protecting standing forests, allowing them to mature into old growth ecosystems like Białowieża forest in Poland [check out the new Polish administration’s environmentalism] and Belarus or California’s sequoia groves, which survived for thousands of years. The remaining 39% could be achieved by restoring fragmented forests and areas that have already been cleared.

“Amid greenwashing concerns around nature’s role in climate crisis mitigation, the researchers underlined the importance of biodiversity helping forests reach their carbon drawdown potential, warning that planting huge numbers of single species would not help and urgent cuts to fossil fuel emissions were needed.

“Rising numbers of forest fires and higher temperatures due to the climate crisis would be likely to reduce the potential, they said. ‘Most of the world’s forests are highly degraded. In fact, many people have never been in one of the few old growth forests that remain on Earth,’ said Lidong Mo, a lead author of the study. ‘To restore global biodiversity, ending deforestation must be a top priority.’

“At Cop26 in 2021, world leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of this decade, although data shows that countries are currently off track. Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia are among nations making progress, however. The researchers said meeting this target, along with making good on UN climate and biodiversity agreements, was crucial to forests reaching their full potential.

“ ‘Conserving forests, ending deforestation and empowering people who live in association with those forests has the power to capture 61% of our potential. That’s huge. It’s potentially reframing forest conservation. It’s no longer avoided emissions, it’s massive carbon drawdown, too,’ said Tom Crowther, the head of the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich. …

“ ‘It can be achieved by millions of local communities, Indigenous communities, farmers and foresters who promote biodiversity. It could be agroforestry for cacao, coffee or banana, natural regeneration, rewilding or creating habitat corridors. They’re successful when nature becomes the economic choice.’ …

“The research follows a controversial 2019 paper on the potential of forests to mitigate the climate crisis, which was also co-authored by Crowther, that provoked intense scientific debate among forest ecologists. … Several scientists felt that potential for nature to help meet climate goals had been overstated and the paper advocated for the creation of mass tree-planting, driving greenwashing concerns.

“Simon Lewis, a professor of Global Change Science at University College London who was a leading critic of the 2019 paper, said the new estimate was much more reasonable and conservative.

“There is a lot of spin and bluster about what trees can do for the environment. To cut through this always ask: what is the amount of carbon taken up by a hectare of land, and over what time period, he said. … ‘There is still only a finite amount of land to dedicate to forests, and ability of trees to sequester carbon is limited. The reality is that we need to slash fossil fuel emissions, end deforestation, and restore ecosystems to stabilize the climate in line with the Paris agreement.’

“Crowther acknowledged that he had been overzealous in the messaging around the 2019 paper. … ‘The fact that it was so much carbon I think gave people the idea that [the study] was suggesting that tree planting could be an alternative to cutting emissions, which categorically cannot be.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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She Preceded Jackson Pollock

January 15, 2024 by suzannesmom

Art: Janet Sobel.
Janet Sobel (1893–1968) was born Jennie Lechovsky in a Jewish settlement in Ukraine. Her contributions to abstract expressionist sensibilities is acknowledged in the book Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art.

Is Jackson Pollock famous because he made drip paintings or because what he made that way speaks to people? I’m inclined to say the results matter more than the technique. But Pollock apparently gets credit for a woman’s discovery that inspired him.

Noah Charney at Literary Hub writes, “We’re supposed to think that Jackson Pollock invented drip painting, and with it the American branch of Abstract Expressionism. … The first drip, or all-around painting — made by the revolutionary technique of splattering and dripping paint on the fly while approaching the canvas from all angles, as it lay on the floor — was Pollock’s 1947 Galaxy. Wasn’t it?

“It makes for a good story. Pollock was the macho, hard-drinking, Wyoming-raised cowboy of postwar American art — Hemingway with a paint bucket. … He remains one of the two most famous American painters, along with Andy Warhol. Americans, especially American men in the 1940s and 1950s, blazed trails and cast their shadows across the globe. …

“That’s [the narrative my book] Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art seeks to correct. … Let’s begin by gently bumping Jackson Pollock off his pedestal. …

“Janet Sobel (1893–1968) was born as Jennie Lechovsky in a Jewish settlement in Ukraine. Her father was killed in a pogrom, the trauma of which prompted her to move to the United States, with her mother and three siblings, in 1908. A year later she married and went on to raise five children. It was decades later that she first picked up a paintbrush, when her then nineteen-year-old son passed his art supplies off to her. He’d won a scholarship to the Art Students League but didn’t plan to take it.

“She tried to convince him to do so, to which he replied, ‘If you’re so interested in art, why don’t you paint?’

“So paint she did. She was entirely untrained, and that has often been a good thing. In the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, it was considered a feather in one’s cap to be an ‘academic painter,’ as the best artists were emerging from the early days of the academy system. But from the nineteenth century onward, being called an ‘academic painter’ would be more of an insult. …

“Sobel experimented. She would squirt paint directly out of a tube, drip it with an eyedropper, even pull wet paint across the canvas using suction from a vacuum cleaner. She didn’t set her canvases on easels but laid them on the floor so she could attack them from all angles. As art historian Kelly Grovier wrote, ‘she assaulted the surface of canvases laid out on the floor, orchestrating a a liquid lyricism of spills, splashes and spits, the likes of which had never before been seen.’ Sobel’s first drip painting was one she’d call Milky Way and finish in 1945 — two years before Pollock ‘invented’ drip painting.

“One of Sobel’s sons, Sol [had written] to the leading tastemakers of the time, including Marc Chagall, who, like Sobel, had fled antisemitic pogroms of his youth and was among the world’s most famous painters.

“But he also wrote to Sidney Janis, a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who had been an advisor to MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) since 1934 and who would be described today as an art world influencer. Janis saw Sobel as one of the great Contemporary American artists (along with others who were immigrants to America, including Willem de Kooning and Marko Rothko). …

“Another hugely influential woman, Peggy Guggenheim, also included Sobel in a high-profile exhibition she promoted called ‘The Women.’ But these were all in 1944 and featured Sobel’s work prior to her innovation of the drip technique.

“Guggenheim was so impressed with Sobel that she also put on a solo show for her at her gallery, Art of the Century. That ran in 1946 and did include [drip painting] Milky Way. The leading art critic of the time, Clement Greenberg, wrote about visiting that exhibit with Jackson Pollock in 1946. Greenberg recalled the exhibit with a combination of dismissive misogynism toward Sobel and an admission that she had inspired Pollock.

“He wrote that he and Pollock had ‘noticed one or two curious paintings shown at Peggy Guggenheim’s by a primitive painter, Janet Sobel (who was, and still is, a housewife living in Brooklyn). … Pollock (and I myself) admired these pictures rather furtively. … The effect — and it was the first really “allover” one that I had ever seen — was strangely pleasing. Later on, Pollock admitted that these pictures had made an impression on him.’ “

You can read more at Literary Hub, here.

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Grandson’s Worthy Cause

January 14, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Kiva.org.
Ivan provides safe, affordable drinking water to people in Uganda, a country where, according to my grandson, 38 million people are without safe water. Ivan has applied for a loan from Kiva.org.

I was visiting Suzanne’s family yesterday and heard from my grandson about a worthy cause he’s donating some savings to. Actually, not donating. He is lending what he can to an entrepreneur called Ivan to help people in a country he has studied get access to safe drinking water.

How did this interest come about?

My grandson’s sixth-grade class’s research on the UN Global Goal of Eradicating Extreme Poverty involved choosing someone from a poor country who had applied to the lending nonprofit Kiva — and making a loan. After studying the poverty issue, screening a living-on-$1.98-cents-a-day experiment, and researching some of the Kiva offerings, the class voted.

My grandson was disappointed when the majority chose to support a grandmother in Thailand who was selling hammocks to help her care for a sick grandchild. He says that Uganda is a poorer country than Thailand — and he maintains that hammock accidents kill people. (He Googled it.) He also says that the annual income in Thailand is 8 times higher than in Uganda.

I asked him what the class majority’s reasoning was. He said (a) there was no way his favorite would get the extra $10,000 he still needed in the 8 days left in his application and (b) the grandmother still had 30 days left and was doing this for family. (He talks that way — “a and b.”)

He is not taking his defeat lying down, lending some of his own savings to Ivan’s cause, posting the link about Ivan in all the many chat rooms of his chess groups, sending Suzanne to twitter to promote Ivan’s application, and talking to me about a blog post.

Now here’s what Kiva says about Ivan: “Ivan is an experienced and seasoned entrepreneur in the safe water production and distribution sector. He has owned and run a Jibu water franchise for over five years and still counting. With the opportunity to open up a water production in the Munyonyo neighborhood, Ivan is excited at the opportunity to take safe and affordable drinking water to the residents of Munyonyo and also subsequently provide jobs for the youth who will be involved in the production and distribution value chain.

“Ivan is seeking a Kiva loan to open the Munyonyo operations. The loan will facilitate the launch of a water production and storefront facility, ensuring that every corner of Munyonyo has access to clean and affordable water. Please support Ivan so he can provide safe and affordable drinking water closer to the Munyonyo neighborhood.”

Interested? Please go to https://www.kiva.org/lend/2688341. Click on “technology.” Then click on the photo of Ivan and his water bottles. If you like the concept, maybe you or someone you know on social media will be up for helping. The Kiva rule is that Ivan has to get the total amount he applied for within the time allotted.

My grandson admits that this kind of lending is not a money-making proposition. He will get paid back in 39 months — in other words, when he is nearly 15 — without interest. (And I guess Kiva will reach him through Erik’s email, as Papa used a charge card when my grandson handed him the cash.)

But look, my grandson says, water is important — every 10 seconds someone in the world dies of water-borne disease, and 38 million Ugandans are without safe water.

Not a guy to argue with.

For more background on the nonprofit (“100% of every dollar you lend on Kiva goes to funding loans”) click here. It has a very good rating from Charity Navigator.

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Lifting Music from the Walls

January 13, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Marica S. Tacconi, CC BY-SA.
The musical score depicted in Jacopo Guarana’s fresco in a Venetian orphanage. 

I know there is a lot of drudgery in historical research and archaeology, but what fun to discover clues about the past that can be brought to life in the present!

That’s what Marica S. Tacconi, professor of musicology and art history at Penn State, does. At the Conversation, she writes about her determination to bring back music painted on the walls of a Venetian orphanage centuries ago.

She begins by asking the reader to imagine today’s rock stars “teaching at an orphanage or homeless shelter, offering daily music lessons” and says “that’s what took place at Venice’s four Ospedali Grandi, which were charitable institutions that took in the needy – including orphaned and foundling girls – from the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century.

“Remarkably, all four Ospedali hired some of the greatest musicians and composers of the time, such as Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora, to provide the young women – known as the ‘putte’ – with a superb music education.

“In the summer of 2019, while in Venice on a research trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Derelitti, more commonly known as the Ospedaletto, or ‘Little Hospital, because it was the smallest of the four Ospedali Grandi.

“As a musicologist specializing in the music of early modern Venice, I was especially excited to visit one of the hidden gems of the city: the Ospedaletto’s music room, which was built in the mid-1770s. …. Little did I know that I would encounter music that hasn’t been performed in nearly 250 years.

“As we entered the stunning music room, I was immediately struck by its elegance and relatively small size. In my mind, I had envisioned a large concert hall; instead, the space is intimate, ellipse-shaped and richly decorated.

“Overshadowed by the more prominent Ospedale della Pietà, not much is known about the music-making that took place for centuries behind the walls of the Ospedaletto. But one of the greatest clues to its venerable history as a music school is literally on one of its walls.

“A fresco on the far wall of the room, painted in 1776-77 by Jacopo Guarana, depicts a group of female musicians – likely portraits of some of the putte – at the feet of Apollo, the Greek god of music. Some of them play string instruments; one, gazing toward the viewer, holds a page of sheet music. …

“The music notation was quite legible, and the composer’s name was inscribed in the upper-right corner: ‘Sig. Anfossi.’

“I took several photos of the fresco. I wanted to learn as much as I could about that piece of music painted on the wall. …

“Armed with those clues on the wall, I continued my research in the days following the visit to the Ospedaletto. I learned that the music by ‘Signor Anfossi’ shown in the fresco was drawn from the opera Antigono, composed by Pasquale Anfossi (1727-97) on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The work premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Benedetto in 1773.

“The text of the [aria] is legible in the excerpt on the wall. It reads, ‘Contro il destin che freme, combatteremo insieme’ – ‘Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together.’

“Like many works from the 17th and 18th centuries, the entire opera is lost. I was determined to find out, however, if that particular aria had survived. … Luck was on my side: To my delight, I found a copy of the aria in a library in Montecassino, a small town southeast of Rome. Why was that particular excerpt chosen to be displayed so prominently on the wall?

“Like other institutions in Venice, the Ospedaletto faced financial hardship in the 1770s. Evidence suggests that the putte of the Ospedaletto were likely involved in raising the funds for the decoration of the music room. The new hall enabled them to give performances for special guests and benefactors, which brought in substantial donations. Together with Pasquale Anfossi, who was their music teacher from 1773 to 1777, they rallied behind their beloved institution, saving it – at least temporarily – from financial destitution. …

“Incidentally, the putte may also have wanted to honor their teacher, as Pasquale Anfossi, too, is portrayed in Guarana’s fresco, directly behind the young woman holding up his music.

“One of the aspects I find most rewarding about the study of older music is the process of discovering a work that has been neglected and unheard for hundreds of years and bringing it back to modern audiences.

“Inspired by the Ospedaletto’s music room, [my colleague] Liesl Odenweller and I have embarked on a collaborative project that brings back not only the aria on the wall but also other music from the institution that has gone unheard for centuries … thanks to a generous grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Venice Music Project. …

“Because the music of the past was written in a notation that’s different from that used today, it’s necessary to translate and input every mark of the original score – notes, dynamics and other expressive marks – into a music notation software to produce a modern score that can be easily read by today’s musicians.

“By performing on period instruments and using a historically informed approach, the musicians of the Venice Music Project and I are excited to revive this remarkably beautiful and meaningful music. Its neglect is certainly not a reflection of its artistic quality but rather likely the result of other composers, such as Vivaldi and Mozart, taking over the spotlight and overshadowing the works of other masters.”

More at the Conversation, here. The author has a nice description of her colleague testing the room’s exceptional acoustics.

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Young African Fights Warming

January 12, 2024 by suzannesmom

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM Staff.
The Christian Science Monitor says, “Deon Shekuza is a peripatetic presence at climate summits as well as at the grassroots – like the class on green hydrogen he taught to young teens in an informal settlement in Windhoek, Namibia, last July.”

Climate activism is no longer mainly the purview of the industrialized Northern Hemisphere or those with enough income and time to worry about it. Now people on the front lines are leading the way. For them it’s a matter of survival.

Sara Miller Llana writes at the Christian Science Monitor about Deon Shekuza, a climate influencer in Namibia, who is “as comfortable proselytizing green energy to youth on the hardscrabble roads and villages of this former German colony as he is in Namibia’s government ministries and the halls of United Nations conferences.

“Paid with respect if not a salary, he’s part of a rising breed of young climate activists across the Global South whose work, suggests one climate expert, may well determine the temperature of your world.

“Africa, which has contributed least to climate warming, is the continent most threatened by the droughts, floods, and heat intensified by climate change. In that extremity, the relentlessly positive Mr. Shekuza sees great opportunity for progress for Namibia.

“In the dusty chaos of an informal settlement on the edge of this capital city one recent morning, he faces his biggest challenge: capturing the imaginations of young teens on a complex topic. The kids have gathered in a bright community center classroom, not for school credit and certainly not for fun on their Saturday off, but to hear Mr. Shekuza teach green hydrogen 101. Namibia has staked its future on this next big solution for a global clean energy transition. …

(The process, simply put, would use solar or wind power to extract hydrogen molecules from desalinated seawater, producing green ammonium that would be used for regional and global fuel markets to power transportation and electricity production.)

“No one here knows what green hydrogen is, let alone how it might be the route to social justice that Namibia’s leaders proclaim.  Grasping for something understandable, Mr. Shekuza gestures out the window at the ancient and humble street scene of women laden with bushels of branches gathered from the forest for heating and cooking fuel. ‘This is exactly what we do not want for our people, right? Some energy sources keep you in the past, and some energy sources move you into the future. This is why we are here talking about green hydrogen.’

“After 90 minutes, Mr. Shekuza is satisfied. These kids might not exactly understand Namibia’s renewable energy policy, but they understand green hydrogen potential: jobs for them in a new economy that could turn Africa’s perpetual sunlight into clean fuel for electricity and transportation here and for export. …

“For activists across Namibia – like the Inuit in the Arctic, or youth from small island nations – caring and conserving is the easy part. These youth grew up living sustainable lives well before it was trendy. Many were born on the land, in the bush, on the coast, with no playgrounds except the natural environment around them. They conserved not for environmentalism, but for survival. …

“Mr. Shekuza and young African activists like him across the continent who are part of the Climate Generation, as we’re calling it, see a chance – the kind Mr. Shekuza tells the children in the informal settlement to seize, the kind he has seized for himself. …

“Mr. Shekuza can barely afford to do the work he has cut out for himself. For all his social confidence, he hesitates at the doorstep of his home before inviting visitors in for the first time ever. Descending from sunny daylight down a step at the side of a large old house, he enters the tiny basement space he shares with his mother.

“With a revealing flourish of humility, he pulls the worn blue curtain separating his mother’s bed from his floor space: ‘This,’ he says, ‘is climate activism in Africa.’

“In his windowless corner lies his bed. … On the chipped yellow paint of a cement wall are dozens of badges from U.N. conferences. A single business suit hangs from the curtain rope.

“This is the headquarters of his nongovernmental organization. With just the grants and fees he cobbles together from government and U.N. funding, the 33-year-old college dropout educates himself, hatches ideas for mentoring youth, and speaks via Zoom to august groups, all on the floor here. For an online speech on climate justice for a British Museum conference, he had no option but to give his speech right there, cross-legged on his sleeping pad, dressed in a traditional African tunic, surrounded by clothes, caps, shoes, and [policy] documents. …

“The environment, he says, was always a part of his interest: Nature was his escape from the noise and dilapidation of poverty in his rural hometown of Grootfontein. … ‘We are people who never look at the environment like something that is separate, because you grew up looking at it as part of you,’ he says. …

“He co-founded the NGO Namibian Youth on Renewable Energy (NAYoRE); gave himself the title ‘youth advocate for sustainable development’; worked with other organizations and networks on biodiversity, farming, and climate change; and started crisscrossing the globe on invitations to attend and address government, U.N., and private conferences. …

” ‘[Young people] may see me with a fancy English up here, but my lifestyle is no different from that kid in the shack. So when I speak for the youth, I’m coming from experience and I’m speaking something solid.’

“He pulls out a binder on agriculture in Namibia and how to use regenerative practices in one of the most water-stressed nations on the planet. It’s the latest document he’s read, and he’s read all of it: ‘I have dedicated hours and hours and hours … like trying to upgrade and up-skill myself. And I did that in and out of school, but I found the most benefit came out of it.’ …

“On a late Friday afternoon, Mr. Shekuza meets at a cafe with Micky Kaapama, whom he has been tutoring to be a climate activist, or, as they put it, a ‘biodiversity enthusiast.’ The glamorous fashion model studied biology and, crucially, has 12,000 Instagram followers. …

“As if trying to convince her of what she has to gain, he pulls out his phone to show an invitation from the Namibian president’s office that he’s just received. Addressed to Deon Shekuza, ‘Youth Advocate for Sustainable Development,’ it’s for a luncheon with Hyphen, a German- and British-financed Namibian company that signed a deal last May with Namibia to build the largest green hydrogen project in the country. It’s an $11 billion agreement.

“But there’s a hitch in the impressive invite. He has no idea how he can even afford to get to the event five hours away in Keetmanshoop.”

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