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The Downside of Beautiful Things

April 30, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: John and Suzanne’s Mom.
On April 28, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s courtyard was featuring cineraria and foxglove.

Last Friday, after a medical appointment, I thought I would treat myself to the Isabella Stewart Gardner again, a museum located in a wealthy woman’s former palace not far from the Museum of Fine Arts. The extraordinary collection has been mostly left the way Gardner displayed it, so there are no plaques. You need to rent the audio tour.

The Gardner may be best known outside New England for the brazen heist of valuable artworks in 1990. Empty places on the walls attest to the unresolved loss.

I usually love going there, but to my surprise, the magic really wasn’t happening for me Friday. That wasn’t just because I wanted to see the nasturtium display and they’d already changed it to foxglove and cineraria, or because the timed tickets had done nothing to control overcrowding, or because a guard told me I wasn’t allowed to carry my coat over my arm.

No, it was something along the lines of “what is one person doing with so much wealth?”

I have fallen into overthinking things: Was that piece of fruit picked for a living wage? Are the clothes I wear from factories with good ventilation and frequent bathroom breaks?

And if “philanthropists” give us access to their beautiful things after they die, wouldn’t they have been more truly philanthropic if they had spent some of that wealth trying to abolish poverty?

On Mastodon, I read about Paris Review contributor Katy Kelleher’s new book. Her publisher says she “explores our obsession with gorgeous things, unveiling the fraught histories of makeup, flowers, perfume, silk, and other beautiful objects. …

“Katy Kelleher,” Simon & Schuster continues, “has spent much of her life chasing beauty. As a child, she uprooted handfuls of purple, fragrant little flowers from the earth, plucked iridescent seashells from the beach, and dug for turquoise stones in her backyard. As a teenager she applied glittery shimmer to her eyelids after religiously dabbing on her signature scent of orange blossoms and jasmine.

“And as an adult, she coveted gleaming marble countertops and delicate porcelain to beautify her home. This obsession with beauty led her to become a home, garden, and design writer, where she studied how beautiful things are mined, grown, made, and enhanced. In researching these objects, Kelleher concluded that most of us are blind to the true cost of our desires. Because whenever you find something unbearably beautiful, look closer, and you’ll inevitably find a shadow of decay lurking underneath.

“In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She untangles the secret history of silk and muses on her problematic prom dress.

She tells the story of countless workers dying in their efforts to bring us shiny rocks from unsafe mines that shatter and wound the earth, all because a diamond company created a compelling ad.

“She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk. With prose as stunning as the objects she describes, Kelleher invites readers to examine their own relationships with the beautiful objects that adorn their body and grace their homes.

“[Kelleher] argues that while we have a moral imperative to understand our relationship to desire, we are not evil or weak for desiring beauty. The Ugly History of Beautiful Things opens our eyes to beauty that surrounds us, helps us understand how that beauty came to be, what price was paid and by whom, and how we can most ethically partake in the beauty of the world.”

I think I need to read the book and see if it will help me deal better with the rampant overconsumption and privilege I am finally noticing.

Art: Anders Zorn.
Gardner herself enjoying a high old time in Venice.

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Why Gardening Is Good for You

April 29, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photos: John and Suzanne’s Mom.

My paternal grandmother, as the wife of a once-renowned Alpine gardener in Syracuse, New York, cherished this quote from Dorothy Frances Gurney: “The kiss of the sun for pardon,/ The song of the birds for mirth,/ One is nearer God’s Heart in a garden/ Than anywhere else on earth.”

Lacking profound insight into that particular claim, I will just say that gardening is good for one’s observational skills and hence one’s mental health, as a recent Washington Post article suggests.

Catie Marron wrote, “I often keep a single flower in a small bottle on my desk, where I can enjoy it. I learn a lot from studying that flower’s cycle.

“It’s an idea I got from the philosopher and author Alain de Botton, who once remarked that we unfairly dismiss museum postcards of prominent paintings. ‘Our culture sees them as tiny, pale shadows of the far superior originals hanging on the walls a few metres away,’ he observed, ‘but the encounter we have with the postcard may be deeper, more perceptive and more valuable to us, because the card allows us to bring our own reactions to it.’

“[As] with the postcard, that single flower invites us to study every detail more deeply. Even over just a few days, the changes are breathtaking. I’ve witnessed the magic of a peony going from hot pink to pale coral, watched a tulip’s petals double in size and seen a rose clinging to the last glimmers of its fading bloom. …

“It was a new sensibility for me, one I didn’t have before I began gardening seriously and closely observing these single blooms on my desk. Once I started digging in the dirt, I noticed ecosystems I had taken for granted. I’d pause to study a surprising color combination on a single flower or a mix of plants. I’d catch myself mid-stride if I recognized a plant but it looked different from similar varieties I’d seen before. Soon, looking carefully at plant life became a habit.

“Much has been written and said about gardening’s practical health benefits, and those effects are real and important. But less is shared about the way that gardening can reshape what you notice, and how that can impact your days. Gardener’s eyes can lead you to gaze at the texture of turf, the imaginative plantings on a brownstone stoop, the splendor of a February cherry blossom. …

The best thing about gardener’s eyes is that you bring them with you everywhere — and everywhere there is something to see. …

“I’ve been awed by the great, formal gardens I’ve visited, but I’ve been just as absorbed by my own modest vegetable garden, where plant growth and renewal always offer something new to capture my attention.

“Well-developed gardener’s eyes can also make you aware of how little you know, a feeling shared by the renowned garden designer Beth Chatto, who experienced this during a visit to Benton End, the home and gardens of Sir Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. Morris was an artist-gardener who crafted ‘a bewildering, mind-stretching, eye-widening canvas of color, textures and shapes, created primarily with bulbous and herbaceous plants,’ Chatto said in Hortus Revisited, edited by David Wheeler. …

” ‘That first afternoon, there were far too many unknown plants for me to see, let alone recognize,’ she wrote. ‘You may look, but you will not see, without knowledge to direct your mind.’ That’s how I felt in my first gardening forays: I was looking, but not seeing. After years of reading about plants and simply spending more time in gardens big and small, I was able to see more clearly.

“That vision didn’t only come by watching plant life. I also learned to watch gardeners themselves. That was based, in part, on the unexpected advice of Tom Coward, the head gardener of Gravetye Manor in Sussex, England. I once bumped into Coward while walking around Gravetye. At that time, I was a new gardener, and I asked if he had any tips for a fresh practitioner of the craft. His guidance: Find a knowledgeable gardener, and watch what they do. …

“If you are new to gardening and feel confused, visit more gardens, spend an afternoon at your local nursery and talk to the gardeners. Ask questions and listen to their stories. Gardeners tend to be unfailingly patient and generous, because they too had to learn the trade in the same slow and circuitous manner. They know the feeling of gardeners’ eyes moving from muddled to clear.”

More at the Post, here.

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Music School Survives Earthquake

April 28, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nicole Tung for NPR.
Ibrahim Muslimani, 30, speaks to a class about a piece of music blending different eras and languages at the Nefes Foundation for Arts and Culture, which he cofounded in 2016, in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Today’s story is about how the arts can help victims of disasters get their bearings again.

As Fatma Tanis reported recently at National Public Radio (NPR), “When the powerful earthquake rocked her home in early February, 18-year-old Sidra Mohammed Ali woke up and thought of one thing: her music school — was it OK?

“The next day, as survivors all over southern Turkey were taking stock of the destruction and checking on loved ones, Mohammed Ali rushed to the school, the Nefes Foundation for Arts and Culture, and took a deep breath of relief when she saw it was still standing, only having sustained some minor damage.

‘This school is my sanctuary from the stress of life as a Syrian refugee in Turkey,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to it.’

“The Nefes Foundation was created by Syrian and Turkish musicians in the city of Gaziantep in 2016. They have group classes where they try to revive forgotten Syrian classics and integrate Turkish and Syrian cultures with music that the two have shared for centuries.

“The school also offers private music lessons on the piano and Middle Eastern instruments like the oud (a pear-shaped string instrument), the kanun (a plucked zither) and the ney (an end-blown flute).

“But more than six weeks after the Feb. 6 disaster, life in the earthquake zone is far from back to normal. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 55,000 people in Turkey and neighboring Syria. It damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings and left 1.5 million people without a home in Turkey alone, according to the United Nations.

“The school had not been able to resume classes until [March 2023], when only three students, out of many dozens, showed up to sing and play.

“Before the earthquake, the school would be packed on weekday evenings, with students ranging from ages 6 to 50, mostly Syrian, but some Turks attended as well.

“The classes are bilingual — in Turkish and Arabic. And that was especially important, according to Ibrahim Muslimani, a Syrian classical musician from Aleppo, who is the brains behind the organization.

” ‘Because some of the young Syrian kids have spent most of their lives here in Turkey and are more fluent in Turkish,’ he told NPR in November 2022. ‘We’re trying to preserve our Syrian cultural identity but also getting to know the Turkish identity through art.’

“Turkey hosts 4 million refugees, the largest number of any country, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The vast majority are Syrians who fled the civil war.

“In the early years of the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011, Turkey had a generous open-door policy toward Syrian refugees. But without broad integration initiatives by the Turkish government, life for many of the refugees has been difficult.

“More recently, politicians in Turkey who oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have scapegoated refugees for the country’s economic problems, leading to a rise in discrimination and hateful attacks. …

“Mohammed Ali, who studies medicine at university and the kanun at the music school, said last weekend the school has been a lifeline for her. She has a bleak outlook on her future, and doesn’t believe that the people in Turkey will ever accept her existence in the country.

” ‘But anytime I have an upsetting encounter, my Turkish teachers and friends here comfort me,’ she said. …

“Rafeef Saffaf Oflazoglu fled Aleppo in 2013 after a near-death encounter. She comes from a family that’s passionate about classical Arabic music. To be able to continue exploring her love of music in Gaziantep was priceless, she said.

“The school also introduced her to centuries-old Turkish songs from the Ottoman archives, and old tunes that traveled from Istanbul to Aleppo. Studying those shared melodies made her feel closer to the culture in her new home.

“Having to go without classes after the earthquake was harder than she expected. ‘After maybe 10 days, I just figured out, like the thing I miss most is art,’ she said, even though she was living in her car at the time. ‘People under trauma react in different ways. It’s not just about singing, you know? It’s spiritual.’

“For Muslimani, the earthquake was a triggering reminder of how he had lost everything a decade ago in Aleppo. … The civil war in Syria destroyed much of the country’s cultural output, along with the lives of millions of Syrians. Muslimani has a mission to keep Aleppo’s traditional form of music, al-Qudud al-Halabiya, alive from Gaziantep.

“He and other Syrian artists also record music at Nefes. ‘I promised my teacher that I would immortalize those precious pieces in the best form possible,’ he said. ‘With the proper orchestra and the glory that they deserve.’ …

“The Nefes Foundation, which survived on donations and fees for private lessons, is now at serious risk of closing down, said Muslimani. They don’t have the funds to pay for next month’s rent. …

” ‘The mere thought of losing this place… it’s unbearable.’ “

More at NPR, here.

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Good Old-Fashioned Pens

April 27, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Writing desk and pen of Moses Webster, born 1781. The red pen is new, a Beiluner.

Today’s story shows that love for the old ways can rise up unexpectedly in young people, maybe even start a trend.

Tara Bahrampour writes at the Washington Post, “The enormous patina-green fountain pen juts over the sidewalk on F Street, two blocks from the White House, its gold nib pointing down at the front doors like a command.

“ ‘Fahrney’s Pens,’ the sign in calligraphy reads. Inside, the narrow space with 28-foot ceilings is a cathedral to its acolytes, its objects of worship gleaming under glass counters. Ball or fountain. Plastic or rose gold. Steel or acrylic resin, redwood or ebony, matte or shiny.

“ ‘Allow me to dip it,’ store manager Phuntsok Namgyal says softly. He bathes a nib in a bottle of blue-black ink and hands a fountain pen to a customer, who dashes off his signature. …

“In its 94 years, Fahrney’s has outlasted the advent of mass-produced ballpoints, the rise of email and text messages, and a pandemic that decimated newer downtown businesses all around it. Its staying power can be attributed to a base of loyal customers, along with a new generation raised on the digital but enchanted by the mechanical. …

“[Solomon Dennis, 79] leaning on a copper-colored walking stick, recalled the first pen he bought at Fahrney’s, in 1974: a Montblanc Diplomat. ‘It was a hundred and fifty dollars then; I think it’s a thousand and fifty now,’ he said. When he lost it, he cried for a week.

“Pens at Fahrney’s range from $20 to nearly $5,000 and from themes like Harry Potter to King Tut. Some have historical connections, like the Fisher Apollo, a ballpoint pen that traveled to the moon and contains gas that allows it to work underwater, upside down, in freezing temperatures and at zero gravity. A National Zoo pen features pandas.

“Once, Fahrney’s sold a $130,000 pen ‘completely covered in diamonds,’ store owner Chris Sullivan said. …

“Choosing a pen is personal. How do you tend to hold it? Is your lettering large and loopy? Do you close your L’s? Do you prefer the feel of a light pen or a heavy one? Flashy or subtle? Fine tip or broad? ‘It shows their individuality,’ Sullivan said.

“Sullivan’s parents bought the store in 1972 from founder Earl Fahrney. Sullivan, 62, worked in the shop growing up and now co-owns it with his sister; his 83-year-old mother is still working, too, in the warehouse in Upper Marlboro. (‘I can’t get her to stop,’ he said.) …

“The store still does repairs, though it is getting harder to find parts. It also sells stationery, journals, inks and calligraphy books, a small bulwark against the drift of a country that long ago dropped handwriting classes from school curriculums.

“And yet the generation that didn’t learn cursive has somehow fallen for fountain pens — and their interest is helping drive demand. The average age of customers at Fahrney’s is 60, but it is dropping, Sullivan said.

“ ‘There’s a lot of young buyers — “young” being people in their 30s — paying $1,200 for a pen,’ said [David Baker, executive director of the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association.] ‘From what I hear, during covid, a lot of collectibles and fine items became significant as people had time to browse and look at these things.’

“Trends like urban sketching and journaling have helped spur interest in fountain pens in particular, said [Jonathan Weinberg, an artist and curator of the Maurice Sendak Foundation in Ridgefield, Conn.] who owns around 250 of them. ‘With a ballpoint pen, your hand tends to get a little cramped,’ he said. ‘Your hand kind of flies across the page with a fountain pen.’ …

“ ‘It’s like a candy store for me,’ [Connor Rosenberger, a 19-year-old music major] said, standing in the middle of Fahrney’s, as if unsure where to turn. ‘A very expensive candy store.’

“For his choir mates, too. Teddy McIntyre, a 21-year-old redhead with a denim jacket and a mustache, said he writes actual letters to relatives. … ‘It gives me an excuse to use my wax seal,’ he said. And Anna Kate Scott, 22, said she writes novels and short stories by pen ‘because I feel more like I’m in it, rather than separated from it by a screen.’ ”

About a year ago, my pal David gave me a fountain pen out of the blue. What a lovely surprise that was!

More at the Post, here.

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Basic Income for Artists

April 26, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Mark McGuinness.
Mark McGuinness, a photographer, said the income from Ireland’s government allowed him to devote two days a week to making work for exhibitions.

It’s hard to say which part of the story on Ireland’s experiment with guaranteed income for artists I love most, but “cross-party support” sure feels like heaven.

Alex Marshall reports at the New York Times, “Ian Fay had toiled for years to make it as a comic book artist and illustrator, and last fall, he was ready to call it a day.

“Fay, 32, who lives in Kilkenny in southern Ireland and specializes in drawing muscly superheroes, was only earning enough money to pay his bills, he recalled recently. He couldn’t afford vacations. He was considering boxing up his art supplies and getting a job in a grocery store.

“Then, in September, a lifeline appeared in his email inbox. A message from Ireland’s government said that Fay had been selected for a program guaranteeing 2,000 artists a basic income. For three years, participants — including musicians, novelists and circus performers — would be paid 16,900 euros a year, about $18,200, no strings attached.

“Fay stared at the email in disbelief. The payments — in weekly installments of €325 — would cover his rent, and lower his anxiety about making ends meet, he said. For the first time in years, he added, he would have ‘time to practice and develop my craft.’ …

“The Irish pilot project is the latest sign of growing international interest in universal basic income — when governments pay ‌their citizens, employed or not, a lump sum each month. Proponents of the idea, including antipoverty groups, left-wing politicians and libertarian organizations, say guaranteed income ensures a population’s sustenance and health better than other social welfare policies. Opponents say it’s simply giving the work-shy cash for nothing.

“In early experiments in Finland, California and Germany, people were paid regardless of their profession. But several pilots are now focused on cultural workers, who can spend months, or even years, on unpaid projects. Painters, dancers and musicians often rely on precarious, part-time jobs to fund their passions, and basic incomes are seen as a way to let them focus on artistic pursuits.

“Last year, in the United States, a privately funded initiative called Creatives Rebuild New York began giving 2,400 artists $1,000 a month. Similar programs are underway in San Francisco and Minnesota. But of these artist-focused efforts, Ireland’s stands out because it is government-run and involves rigorous analysis of the recipients’ finances, work patterns and well-being to gauge the handouts’ impact. The recipients’ livelihoods will be compared with those of 1,000 artists in a control group, who are not receiving any payments.

“Catherine Martin, Ireland’s culture minister — a trained singer and former street busker — said in a telephone interview that the idea for the policy emerged three years ago during the coronavirus pandemic. With Ireland’s music venues, theaters and museums shuttered, Martin commissioned a task force to explore how the government could help cultural workers survive. Its main recommendation was a basic income trial. …

The pilot, which has cross-party support, has a budget of €33.8 million a year — and that’s on top of the €130 million that Ireland spends on culture via the Arts Council, its main arts funding body.

“Applications opened last April for people working in the visual arts, theater, literature, music, dance, opera, movies, circuses and architecture. … The applicants had to submit two pieces of evidence to show they were genuine cultural workers, such as membership in a professional body, proof of income from art sales or newspaper reviews. Martin said the government didn’t consider the quality of the applicants’ work.

“More than 9,000 people applied, with 8,200 deemed eligible. From that pool, 2,000 were randomly selected to receive payments and 1,000 for the control group. …

“Lydia Mulvey, 47, a screenwriter, said that she quit her job in a telecommunications firm as soon as she heard she’d made it into the program. Now she spends her time writing pilot scripts for thrillers and sci-fi shows, rather than trying to squeeze that into evenings and weekends. ‘I knew it’d be transformative and give me my life back,’ Mulvey said, although she added that, if she didn’t already own her own home, she’d struggle to live on such a low income, especially in Ireland’s squeezed property market.

“Mark McGuinness, 31, a photographer, said that before receiving the basic income he had spent the whole week seeking commercial photography work to pay his rent and the cost of supplies, and had let his artistic practice slip away. Now, he’d ‘clawed back’ two days a week to make work for exhibitions, he said. …

“Ireland’s government is sending recipients questionnaires every six months that ask about the state of their finances, artistic career and health. … Last year, those taking part received a survey to collect baseline data. It asked if they could adequately heat their homes, replace worn furniture or ‘afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day.’ …

“Aengus Ó Snodaigh, a spokesman on cultural issues for the opposition Sinn Fein party, which supports the program, said he wanted data long before the trial concluded so artists didn’t face a ‘cliff edge’ at the end. He added that he had many questions about the program, including whether payments benefited early-career artists more than established names, and whether the handouts were having unintended consequences, like causing tensions in rock bands if some members were selected, but others weren’t.

“ ‘Maybe the money would be better spent on hardship funds for artists who can prove they can’t afford the mortgage, or can’t rent a studio,’ Ó Snodaigh said.

“Few recipients are taking the windfall for granted. Mulvey, the screenwriter, said she’d recently met television companies about developing shows, and was often working long into the night. ‘I keep reminding myself that three years is a really short time, and we’ve already had six months,’ she said, adding that she wanted to make sure ‘I don’t have to go back to a day job when this stops.’ ”

More at the Times, here.

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Falling in Love with Hats

April 25, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Francesca Magnani.
Film- and hat-maker Richard Faison on the G train in Brooklyn. A photographer’s chance encounter on the subway led to this story.

Do you notice how very creative people are good in almost any field calling for creativity? I have a friend like that who takes classes in many kinds of art and always does a nice job even if she is never going to make that particular skill her main thing.

Photographer Francesca Magnani wrote recently at the art newspaper Hyperallergic about a filmmaker who became a creative haberdasher.

“One December morning, among the sparse riders waiting for the G train in Brooklyn, New York, I saw a tall Black man with a colorful jacket and a cowboy hat. I took some photos as I introduced myself to Richard Faison. ‘I am also an artist and I actually made this hat,’ he told me. 

“A few weeks later, a friend who was visiting from Florence casually mentioned she wanted to buy a hat while here, and I arranged to see Faison in his lab, which turned out to also be his apartment. The one-bedroom apartment was filled with dozens of hats at various stages of existence and along with my friend Michèle’s green hat, two more were being ‘blocked’ and were drying by the window. On the wall was hanging a shtreimel, the first one that Faison made: these hats, traditionally worn by Orthodox Jewish men, were in fact his specialty.

“Sitting down with Faison on his sofa on that day, and once again more recently, I asked him some questions. Our conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity.

“Francesca Magnani: You used to be a filmmaker. How did you become a milliner?

“Richard Faison: I went to a small program at NY Film Academy for eight months. I started doing film by carrying around my mom’s video camera and shooting all my friends and my adventures, editing cool videos and creating a series that got pretty popular on Facebook. That led me to make music videos. I went to Toronto after meeting a few artists out there, and I became an editor and cinematographer for short films and documentaries.

“I started making hats legit by coincidence. I was friends with a Hasidic gentleman, Lov, and he came by my place for some drinks with friends. He said, ‘You always wear cool hats, you should work with a guy I sell fur to.’ That’s how I met my mentor and this entire adventure started.

“FM: How do the two worlds, film and millinery, work in synergy?

“RF: They are similar. You have to have an eye and a certain aesthetic that you want your pieces to have. The vision I see of a hat is like how I used to envision how I wanted certain shots to look like before going out to shoot, and just creating something with a story that people can either relate to or admire.

“FM: You started your own business just a few months ago, last September. How did you build your own company, Oliver Lewis Hats?

“RF: My mentor helped me: I worked for him in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for about three years. The day I asked for a second raise, he took me on a long car ride and looked me directly in the eyes. He said, ‘You are a true artist with your hands, but I’ll never pay you what you deserve.’ Those words were the most beautiful and hurtful I’ve heard in one sentence. After that, he got me my first hat body and told me where to get more, and I took off running.

“FM: Coming from a background in filmmaking, are there artists and directors you look to for inspiration?

“RF: My number one influence would have to be Jimi Hendrix. His style, his grace, the chances he took, how groovy he was, everything! I used to watch his old concerts and get lost in his rhythm and clothing choices. The second is André 3000 of Outkast. I moved to Atlanta in 2003 for high school. I remember getting bullied for wearing tight jeans back then but then I would look at the shirts, pants, and hats André 3000 would wear, and it gave me the confidence to be myself no matter what others thought. …

“RF: I reach my customers best through Instagram, where I can show my skills through video reels and also communicate directly with my audience. I have an even number of male and female clients — the age range is usually 30 to 40. …

“FM: You said you devised your own gluing technique for shtreimels; you use as ornament some Swiss figurines usually found in ‘Swiss cowboy’ belts, and the name of your business comes from Oliver Lewis, the first Black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. How do influences from different cultures inform your creations? 

“RF: Influences are how I came to be. They’re the essence behind my entire being and work. Growing up in Brooklyn, I had so many cultures surrounding me that would impact me. My dad being from Trinidad and being a huge cowboy lover was one of the biggest for me. I watched Clint Eastwood movies with him and thought cowboys were the coolest people on earth. Then I found out that most cowboys were actually Mexican and Black and that piqued my interest. … I get a lot of inspiration from the Italians in NYC (such smooth style!), Jamaicans, and Hispanic communities. The melting pot in Flatbush helped me create my unique style.”

Need a hat? Or do you “already have all” your hats, as they used to say of the ladies in Boston? Check out Oliver Lewis Hats on Instagram.

More at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall. Lots of cool photos.

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To Ditch Plastic Packaging

April 24, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Alibaba.
You can take a jug to buy detergent in bulk at Debra’s and keep refilling the smaller bottle you keep by your sink.

For a few years now, I have been refilling the plastic bottle that my dishwashing liquid once came in. For a while I bought a concentrate online. Now I take a clean jug into Debra’s Next Door, pump the detergent into the jug, and refill my smaller container for months.

Today’s story is about big brands trying to get into the act.

Susan Shain reports at the New York Times, “Every week, Angela Espinoza Pierson looked at her recycling bin — filled with detergent jugs, shampoo bottles and clamshell containers that once held strawberries — with mixed feelings. Sure, it was a lot of plastic. But it was going to be recycled.

“Or so she thought. Then her husband sent her some articles revealing that less than 6 percent of the country’s plastic gets recycled, and that even recycled plastic can only be reused once or twice. Ms. Espinoza Pierson, who lives in Buda, Texas, was shocked. …

“Determined to cut back on her plastic consumption, Ms. Espinoza Pierson got a starter kit from a company selling refillable household cleaners. In it were tablets containing concentrated hand soap as well as multi-surface, glass and bathroom cleaners — and four empty containers. She filled each one with tap water, then dropped in a tablet and watched it dissolve. If she is happy with the cleaners, she will order more tablets but reuse the containers. No new plastic required.

“Given plastic’s detrimental effects on the environment, nearly three-quarters of Americans say they are trying to reduce their reliance on single-use plastic, according to Pew Research Center. Since plastic is everywhere and avoiding it altogether is extraordinarily difficult, some, like Ms. Espinoza Pierson, have revived a once-customary practice: refilling containers rather than disposing of them. If just 10 to 20 percent of plastic packaging were reused, a report from the World Economic Forum estimates, the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean could be cut in half. …

“Over the past few years, Windex, owned by SC Johnson, introduced concentrates that dissolve in water; Dove began selling a deodorant stick that slots into a reusable case; and The Body Shop added refill stations to half its American stores.

“These are tiny experiments in a country that generates nearly 500 pounds of plastic waste per person, per year. But Matt Prindiville, the chief executive of Upstream, a reuse advocacy organization and consultancy, says his organization has seen the number of reuse-refill start-ups grow from a dozen in 2019 to more than 150 today.

‘If you asked me about this three years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed at how quickly the interest in the sector has blown up,’ Mr. Prindiville said. ‘Not just from the do-gooders, but from the biggest brands in the world.’

“American beverage companies switched to single-use plastic containers during the 1970s, largely because it saved money, said Bart Elmore, an associate professor of environmental history at Ohio State University. No longer would companies have to collect or clean refillable bottles.

“Since throwing things away, rather than cleaning and reusing them, was convenient, too, it seemed like progress. … Manufacturers and consumers alike fell in love with the lightweight and unbreakable material. More than a third of all plastic ever produced has been used for packaging, most of it created and disposed of in the same year.

“Today, the pressure to reduce corporate carbon footprints is forcing a second look at all that plastic packaging. ‘Reuse, for some types of products and packaging,’ Mr. Prindiville said, ‘can put a huge dent in reducing those climate impacts.’

“Household cleaners seem particularly primed for a refill revolution. Whereas shampoo and conditioner* involve complicated chemical formulas, many cleaners can be easily concentrated and reconstituted with water. In fact, that’s what makes up the bulk of traditional cleaning products, leading Mr. Prindiville to describe the current system this way: ‘We’re just shipping around water. And that’s dumb.’

“In contrast, the concentrated surface cleaners sold by Grove Collaborative each contain 1 ounce of liquid, far less than a standard 16-ounce bottle of ready-to-use cleaner, and thus require less fuel to transport.

Grove’s spray bottles are meant to be reused, and its concentrates are packaged in glass or aluminum — materials that, unlike plastic, can be recycled over and over.

“Grove’s products are now on shelves in more than 5,000 stores, including Target, CVS and Walmart, and the company has seen its net revenue from refillables grow by more than 600 percent since 2018. But with $322 million in total revenue, it is a tiny player in the $30 billion home care market.

“The Clorox Company, on the other hand, has a huge reach. Last year, the $7.1 billion company, which sells products in 100 countries, stepped into the refillable market with cleaning spray concentrates that can be emptied into a reusable plastic spray bottle. (Packaging accounts for more than half of all trigger spray manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emissions, transportation for another third.) …

“Not everyone is as enthusiastic. Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and founder of the anti-plastic pollution organization The Last Beach Cleanup, noted that many cleaning products are housed in PET or HDPE, two types of plastic with relatively high recycling rates. So she is less concerned about them — and far more concerned about the packaging of other products.

“ ‘Where these companies should be focusing is on this vast portfolio of everything else that isn’t recyclable, that is single use and that often becomes plastic pollution,’ she said, pointing to SC Johnson’s Ziploc bags and Clorox’s Hidden Valley ranch dipping cups. ‘This is just a classic example of big corporations doing a stunt over here on something that’s not the main issue to distract from all the single-use plastic they’re pushing out.’

More at the Times, here, including the response from Clorox.

*Note that shampoo and conditioner in a soap-bar form work just fine.

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DJ, Age 85, Aims to Keep Working

April 23, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Mary McCoy.
Mary McCoy, the longest-serving female radio DJ on the globe, according to Guinness World Records, has no interest in retirement. 

If you are lucky enough to have a job that lights up your life, why would you ever retire? That’s the thinking of the woman featured in today’s story.

Ramon Antonio Vargas reports at the Guardian, “Mary McCoy has broken her neck, had multiple bouts with Covid-19 and grieved the deaths of two husbands. But none of that could get the 85-year-old off the airwaves she has been on for more than 70 years. The transition from vinyl to purely digital control panels was no match either.

“ ‘I have seen it all,’ the radio presenter from Texas told the Guardian, weeks before the end of her 72nd year in her role. ‘And you know what? I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.’

“Guinness World Records has confirmed McCoy as the longest-serving female radio disc jockey. She passed Maruja Venegas Salinas of Peru, who died in 2015 during her 70th year as a host.

“Such recognition has given McCoy and her loved ones the occasion to reflect on a remarkable journey. It began with a childhood dream of breaking into the entertainment business – dreamed even as she and her family briefly lived in a tent without running water or electricity. …

“ ‘She’s been through adversity, she’s been through pain, and she keeps going,’ said her longtime co-host, Larry Galla. …

“McCoy was born on a farm in east Texas. Her family soon climbed into their Ford Model A and moved about 200 miles south-west to Conroe. There, about 40 miles north of Houston, life was lived without frills.

“McCoy took breaks from life in the tent by learning how to yodel. She joked that her father probably wanted to strangle her but she became quite skilled. When she was 11, she signed up for a talent show at a local theater. Performing the Patsy Montana yodeling classic ‘I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,’ she won.

“The manager of a new radio station, KMCO, learned of the performance and called her school, inviting her to a recorded audition. McCoy borrowed a guitar she said was ‘three times’ as big as her, took a bus ride and performed. The manager asked if she knew enough songs to play a 15-minute program.

“McCoy said she did, so they recorded a show. McCoy recalls crying when she heard herself on the air. She ‘thought it was the worst thing I’d ever heard – I thought I’d never go back and my career had ended.’ But the manager called back and said KMCO had picked up a sponsor for her program, which would go out on Saturdays.

“McCoy was delighted. Eventually, she convinced the manager to let her host a show. She simply played 78 rpm records by the country artists to whom she listened. That was where the McCoy everyone in her community now knows began to take shape.

“She had on fabled singer-songwriters including Jim Reeves, Hank Locklin and Sonny James. She toured, sang and played the guitar with artists like James and Slim Whitman. She landed a spot on the Louisiana Hayride tour, which came to Conroe in 1955.

On that stop, she performed alongside a rising musician named Elvis Presley.

“Other episodes in McCoy’s career could fill a book with ease. One of her favorites came in 1965, when she performed as a last-minute substitute at a prison rodeo. After she and Roy Acuff sang, organizers let loose some bulls. It was part of the show but it scared her. McCoy tried to climb out of the rodeo ring but couldn’t because the dress she performed in was too tight. She asked some clowns to help her up. She remembers them hugging and even trying to kiss her, smudging her with their face paint. …

“In 2013, she suffered a fall. Doctors diagnosed a fractured neck, performed an eight-hour surgery and sent her home to rest on a hospital-grade bed, wearing an elaborate head brace she said made her look ‘like Frankenstein.’

“By then, 78 rpm records had given way to 45rpms and in turn CDs, before everything ultimately went digital. McCoy said she had minimal understanding of the technology that now runs her industry, but knew she could co-host her show from home if she had to. So she did, with help from colleagues at the station now known as K-Star.

“A similar plan let her stay on the air each of three times she has caught Covid-19.

“ ‘That shows you how much I love this,’ McCoy said.

“She was inducted to the Texas country hall of fame in 2010. In Conroe in 2014, she was added to a wall of local legends. Images since added to the mural include Roy Harris, a boxer who challenged Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight championship, and the Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed.

“To see if McCoy had a shot at the Guinness World Records, K-Star enlisted the help of McCoy’s youngest of four daughters, Kim Colette Stout. Beginning last year, Stout gathered photographs, newspaper articles and social security payment records, all to establish that her mother’s career began way back when at KMCO, the station whose nickname, ‘Kim-Coe,’ inspired Stout’s first and middle names. …

“Stout submitted the materials to Guinness. It eventually sent an email back.

“It said: ‘Your mother is now the world record-holder.’

“Stout said she once tried to coax McCoy, her ‘momma,’ to retire. She’s now glad she didn’t succeed. … ‘She’d be lost if she came home and she wasn’t going to work every morning.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Women’s Basketball in Rwanda

April 22, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Noble and Greenough School.
A group of 25 students and faculty from Shooting Touch and the Noble and Greenough School went to Rwanda for a trip to help spread Shooting Touch’s mission of health advocacy for women and children and empowerment through sport.

You may remember my young friend Shagufa Habibi, who escaped an abusive child marriage in Afghanistan through the power of sport. It all started with her taking up golf. In May, she will graduate from Brandeis with a master’s degree.

Today’s article also addresses the power of sport. In this case, basketball.

Tara Sullivan reports at the Boston Globe, “Vin Bui met the initial offer of financial assistance and basketball support with a requisite dose of skepticism, narrowing his eyes just enough to make any self-respecting Dorchester native proud. But since the AAU team he was building for his niece, Christina Pham, and her fellow players was still in its infancy, he figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to a pitch. [So] he took a call from a local organization called Shooting Touch.

“He had no idea it would change his world. …

‘I figured it was a basketball pyramid scheme, too good to be true. Money, enrichment, and education. Come on. But I took the chance and called them up. They ended up being everything they said and more.’ …

“Had Bui heard of Shooting Touch before, he would not have been surprised. The program, which grew from its roots in Rwanda to expand into Boston, defines itself as ‘an international sport-for-development organization whose mission is to use the mobilizing power of basketball to bridge health and opportunity gaps for youth and women facing racial, gender, and economic inequalities.’ …

“From sponsoring an AAU team in the city to sending players on an international relief trip abroad, what you get is an ongoing lesson in how small acts of empowerment for those who have it least but appreciate it most can truly make the world a better place.

“[Seven] years after joining forces with Shooting Touch, Bui, Pham, and Pham’s fellow basketball player Tahira Muhammed are 6,000 miles across the world, completing a circle that Shooting Touch founder Lindsey Kittredge could barely imagine more than a decade ago, when she and her husband started the grassroots program.

“As part of a group of 25 students and faculty from Shooting Touch and the Noble and Greenough School (where both young women go to school and play on the championship-winning basketball team), their current trip to Rwanda connects two chambers of the same charitable heart, with Rwandan Shooting Touch participants and their Boston counterparts meeting for the first time.

“ ‘It is pretty emotional,’ Kittredge said recently. … ‘It’s proving the point and seeing the future potential of this sport and what it can build, how you can reach anybody in any demographic, any environment, any geographic presence or background, and you can make an impact for positive health.’

“To help understand it best, think of Shooting Touch as being built on two primary pillars — basketball and women’s health. See it as living proof of how each pillar can keep the other up, and realize how it can do it in a country once ravaged by genocide with long-standing human rights issues rooted in misogyny and gender-based violence just as faithfully as it does in Boston neighborhoods such as Dorchester and Roxbury. …

“In Rwanda, women’s health clinics run concurrently with basketball skills events, serving women from the youngest to oldest ages, offering vaccinations, malaria and HIV screenings, examinations, and information free for all. The level of empowerment that goes with that is almost impossible to calculate, just as the network of experience, people, and contacts young women in Boston can make through the program. When kids are empowered, when they see opportunities they might have never known existed, they head into an adult world much better prepared for success.”

More at the Globe, here.

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Swedes Who Welcome Migrants

April 21, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Dominique Soguel.
Young migrants who arrive in Sweden alone become part of a “big family” with older people in this unusual living arrangement.

You may have heard of anti-immigrant sentiment rising in Sweden, a country that historically has been welcoming to victims of war and persecution. But no story is the whole story.

At the Christian Science Monitor Dominique Soguel reports about the ongoing generosity of many Swedes.

“It was when his older Swedish neighbors threw him a high school graduation party that Afghan native Zia Sarwary finally felt a sense of belonging in this picturesque seaside city [Helsingborg].

“ ‘It meant everything to me,’ says Mr. Sarwary, who at the age of 13 arrived alone in Sweden during the 2015 refugee crisis. ‘That was the beginning of feeling at home.’

“Mr. Sarwary is one of dozens of tenants living in Sällbo, a shared-living project mixing elder Swedes and young adults, some of them from Sweden, others – like him – from the Middle East or Afghanistan. The six-story building with 51 apartments helps counter both the loneliness of advanced-age Swedes and the integration difficulties facing migrants who arrived as unaccompanied minors.

“Tenants of Sällbo have found common ground within these colorful walls, which they attribute to the cumulative impact of courtesy, kindness, mutual curiosity, and understanding.

“ ‘The whole goal was to show that even if you are different and even if you are people who would not usually socialize, you would do so if there is a safe environment where you know who is in the house,’ says Dragana Curovic, the project manager for Sällbo. ‘After three years, we can say that it worked.’

“Had they not moved under the same roof, the older Swedes and young migrants living here would almost certainly not have mingled. Fear and misunderstanding would have been major obstacles. Older Swedes’ impressions of young migrants draw heavily on negative press reports linking them to crime.

“As for the immigrants, their interactions with Swedes had largely been limited to asylum center officials – authority figures who set the initial tone for the newcomers’ experience, but weren’t focused on building bonds with them.

“Sällbo attempts to overcome that by getting tenants engaged with each other.

To move in, tenants must agree to socialize at least two hours per week.

“That can happen in shared kitchens, activity rooms, or cozy living areas. Each floor boasts three common areas, ranging from puzzle and scrapbooking rooms to libraries and film-screening rooms to carpentry workshops. Sun-kissed kitchens are set up for mingling, growing herbs, pickling, and baking. Artwork decorates the hallways. …

“Young and old concur that the pandemic helped strengthen the bonds that bind them. Younger residents did grocery shopping for the elders, who returned the favor by helping those with low computer skills keep up with their classes online.

“Now a logger working night shifts, Mr. Sarwary wishes he had even more time to spend with his older neighbors and feels bad when he needs to cut conversations short to catch his bus. After all, elders are treated with deference in Afghanistan. He believes curiosity feeds residents’ capacity to find common ground across cultures and age groups.

“ ‘People try to understand each other,’ he says. ‘I know you have your differences. I have mine. But we can meet in the middle ground and do something together that is good for both of us. There is a positivity in everything. That is the best part.’

“ ‘Sometimes you do things that are not correct,’ Mr. Sawary continues. ‘Instead of people coming in scolding you, they come in and they’re like, “Oh, you could do it this way.” ‘ …

“It helps that people understand that he had a tough background and approach him with an open mind to learn about his headline-grabbing, war-torn homeland.

“ ‘They would always ask instead of just judging. “OK, is this true about your country?” ‘ he says. …

“Jan Gustavsson, a retired provider of security systems, says he like helping young people from Afghanistan and other parts of the world integrate. ‘We can see in … Stockholm and Gothenburg, there’s a lot of problems. … I think it will help if these people live together with Swedish people.’ …

“Anki Andersson oversees scrapbooking activities on Tuesdays. Her husband, Kalle, helps fellow seniors do seated workouts. ‘Sällbo is the perfect place if you are mobile and seeking to socialize,’ says Ms. Andersson. ‘People here are so alike in a way. It is hard to explain. We click together very well, both the older and young residents. …

“ ‘If we have something we need to do or heavy things to carry, they give as a hand. We are a big family.’ “

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Nice pictures.

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Housing for Detroit Artists

April 20, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Sarah Rose Sharp/Hyperallergic.
The only public mural commemorating iconic Detroit band MC5 remains intact, as housing for artists is built around it.

When you base housing development on what people can pay to live there, good things may happen. If only the development of the artist community in Fort Point, Boston, had been based on that principle! City planners of the past and their favored developers have pretty much ruined Fort Point — and all of Seaport — and set the area up for drowning in a future hurricane.

Sarah Rose Sharp opines at Hyperallergic, “Artists are fundamentally problem solvers. They are generally understood to be solving problems of a personal-expressive nature, or perhaps ones related to community, and occasionally political or environmental problems. They are not often considered the front line for solving, say, problems of city infrastructure. But maybe they should be.

“[Ten years ago] if you’d asked Oren Goldenberg what he does, he might have said ‘filmmaker’ or ‘producer,’ or he might have narrowed his eyes and asked: ‘Who wants to know?’ These days, however, the answer is a little more complicated. At some point in the last decade, Goldenberg stopped making films as a document, and stepped through the frame to build the world-as-document. … Our School (2005-2009) is a feature-length documentary that seeks to reveal the experience of going to high school for one day, from dawn to nightfall, in his home city of Detroit.

“ ‘When I was doing Our School, I’m like, should I just go be a teacher? What’s going to really help with the education crisis? It’s gonna be a teacher, right?’ said Goldenberg during a walking interview with Hyperallergic across the site of his latest undertaking. Ten years ago, the grounds we are walking on would have been identified by in-the-know Detroiters as Recycle Here!, a community-grown waste management center piloted by Matthew Naimi in a city that had famously suspended trash pick-up for decades, to say nothing of recycling. A lot has changed in ten years, and for the last seven, Goldenberg has been right at the heart of it.

“Nowadays, Recycle Here! is a recognized part of city infrastructure, but the facilities that surround it have undergone a startling transformation. In place of the crumbling outbuilding that once belonged to the former Lincoln automotive factory (still indicated by the adjoining Lincoln Street and its eponymous art park, also developed by Naimi and his associates), a new complex is emerging. Once a free space and favorite haunt of street artists, that has tragically claimed at least one life, the complex is on the home stretch of work that has stabilized the structure and secured facilities. The project is expected to launch this year with communal gathering spaces, a fresh venue for longtime neighbor Marble Bar, and 81 live-work units calibrated to hold the community that occupied the former structure.

“ ‘In doing this project, I’ve learned that our presumptions around development and construction are just wrong,’ said Goldenberg. ‘When you think of high-end developments, they create a projection of who can we attract, as opposed to who is here, because they need something that could pay the cost to renovate a historic building. …

“ ‘You have to create different models of verification,’ Goldenberg continued.

‘When we first started getting money here, people asked: Why is your commercial rent so low? I replied: “Well, it’s for Recycle Here! They’re already here, this is all they can pay.” ‘

“This isn’t the first time Goldenberg has taken an interest in housing. Brewster Douglass, You’re My Brother (shot 2010-11, released 2012) is a documentary about the first public housing for low-income Americans, erected in Detroit. …

“In another past project, Goldenberg once more explored community-building in a historic space. Though he created the video Make it History: the Downtown Synagogue, Goldenberg’s more notable legacy with the organization is arguably the series of after-dark House music dance parties, which sought to bring in new energy and a wave of younger constituents to the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, built in 1921 and currently the last remaining free-standing synagogue in Detroit. …

“ ‘I think a lot of directors consider films holy, and worth more than the humans who make them,’ said Goldenberg. ‘I push very hard against that. I just don’t think it’s true. No one should die making your movie, no one should be exhausted. [This new movie] is different. People are going to live here.’

“In Detroit, the shattering of infrastructure, regulation, and ownership opened a window, one that is now rapidly closing as entrepreneurial forces have seized upon the city as a development opportunity. But for a minute, and maybe even a minute longer, there are so many problems that artists have been able to get their hands on and start to solve in the way that artists do: A way that places a completely different valuation on what community means, what a recycling center means, what a building means. Filmmakers and producers already know how to imagine a world into being, through the sheer power of belief. Goldenberg is showing what happens when that belief becomes a home that others can occupy.”

More at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall. Subscriptions encouraged.

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Albania’s Last Wild River

April 19, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nick St Oegger/The Guardian.
The Vjosa River near Qesarat, southern Albania. The river and its three main tributaries in the country have been declared a national park. 

In the 1980s, when I was active in the Esperanto movement, I managed the New England group’s post office box. One day I took out a letter on flimsy paper with a Tirana postmark. Tirana is the capital of Albania. The Berlin Wall had yet to fall, and Albania was still firmly behind the Iron Curtain. I felt like I had received a message from the other side of the moon.

Nowadays Albania is not so different from the rest of Europe, and today’s story is about its participation in European efforts to save wild rivers.

Karen McVeigh  writes at the Guardian, “One of the last wild rivers in Europe, home to more than 1,000 animal and plant species, has been declared a national park by the Albanian government, making the Vjosa the first of its kind on the continent.

“The Vjosa River flows 168 miles (270kms) from the Pindus mountains in Greece through narrow canyons, plains and forests in Albania to the Adriatic coast. Free from dams or other artificial barriers, it is rich in aquatic species and supports myriad wildlife, including otters, the endangered Egyptian vulture and the critically endangered Balkan lynx, of which only 15 are estimated to remain in Albania.

“For years, the Vjosa’s fragile ecosystem has been under threat: at one point as many as 45 hydropower plants were planned across the region.

“But [in March], after an almost decade-long campaign by environmental NGOs, Vjosa was declared the first wild river national park in Europe. Environmentalists described it as a historic decision that has placed the tiny Balkan nation at the forefront of river protection.

“Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama … described the creation of the national park as a ‘truly historic moment’ for nature as well as social and economic development. ‘Today we protect once and for all the only wild river in Europe,’ he said. ‘This is about to change a mindset. Protecting an area does not mean that you enshrine it in isolation from the economy.’ …

Mirela Kumbaro Furxhi, Albania’s tourism and environment minister, said the creation of the park was part of the country’s evolution and continuing emancipation three decades on from communist rule. …

“She said, ‘Maybe Albania does not have the power to change the world, but it can create successful models of protecting biodiversity and natural assets, and we are proud to announce the creation of this first national park on one of the last wild rivers in Europe.’ …

“A collaboration between the Albanian government, international experts, NGOs from the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign to protect Balkan rivers, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company and environmental organization, the 12,727 hectare (31,500 acre) park aims to ensure the Vjosa and its unique ecosystems are safeguarded. It has been given IUCN category II park status, a high level of protection similar to that of a wilderness. The categorisation covers ‘large-scale ecological processes,’ species and ecosystems, crucial to ensuring dams and gravel extraction are banned. It is expected to be operational in 2024.

“Boris Erg, director of the European office at IUCN, paid tribute to the government of Albania for its leadership and ambition. ‘Today marks a milestone for the people and biodiversity of Albania,’ he said. ‘We invite other governments in the region and beyond to show similar ambition and help reach the vital goal of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030.‘ …

“The Albanian government is starting a joint process with the Greek authorities to create the Aoos-Vjosa transboundary park, aiming to protect the entire river across both countries, who agreed in January to sign a memorandum of understanding specifying the next actions.

“Europe has the most obstructed river landscape in the world, with barriers such as dams, weirs and fords, estimated to number more than a million, according to a 2020 EU study in 28 countries. Such fragmenting of rivers affects their ability to support life.

“Ulrich Eichelmann, a conservationist and founder of Riverwatch and part of the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign, said: ‘Most people in central Europe have never ever seen a wild, living river, free from the impacts of human interference, that isn’t diverted or dammed or built up with embankments and where biodiversity is low as a result. But here, you have a wild river, full of complexity and without interference.’ …

“Ryan Gellert, Patagonia’s CEO, said the collaboration proved the power of collective action. ‘We hope it will inspire others to come together to protect the wild places we have left, in a meaningful way,’ he said, adding that the park was proof that the ‘destruction of nature did not have to be the price of progress.’ “

Man, I love Patagonia. Did you know the company takes no Chinese cotton from Uighur slave labor? I bought the most luxurious cotton towels at Patagonia, guilt free.

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall.

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The Snail and the Kite

April 18, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Sydney Walsh for NPR.
Apple Snail shells along the banks of Lake Okeechobee in Moore Haven, Fla. The snails are an invasive species, but they are helping an endangered bird stage a comeback.

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.” We don’t like invasive species as a rule, but in today’s story, one kind is saving an endangered bird. Proving once again that life is complicated.

Greg Allen reports at NPR (National Public Radio), “In Florida’s Everglades, few species are more closely tied to the habitat’s health than an endangered bird, the snail kite. The Everglade snail kite is a raptor, similar to a hawk, that eats just one thing: snails.

“Over the last century, as much of the Everglades was drained, the bird’s population declined precipitously. But the kite has bounced back recently thanks to an exotic snail. It’s a rare case of an invasive species having a positive impact.

“Robert Fletcher, a University of Florida professor who directs a snail kite monitoring program, says the invasive species was first spotted in 2004. Within a few years, it had expanded through much of the Everglades. ‘And it was around that time,’ he says, ‘that we started to see snail kite number increase.’

“Few people pay closer attention to the snail kite than Tyler Beck. He manages Florida’s the endangered bird’s population for Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. On the western edge of Lake Okeechobee, Tyler Beck uses an airboat to motor through marshes looking for kites. … Overhead, [one] alarmed kite makes a rapid clicking call as it hovers and swoops over the airboat.

“University of Florida researcher Brian Jeffrey wades through thigh-deep water toward the area he thinks the nest might be. Jeffrey directs a field team that monitors Florida’s snail kite population. He finds the nest, but it’s 20 feet up, too high to count the eggs or see if any have hatched. Other members of his team will be back soon with a ladder to check on the nest.

“Jeffrey has three field teams that cover thousands of square miles counting and tracking Florida’s snail kites. The kites—and the field teams–range from Everglades National Park on the southern tip of Florida all the way up to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, near Gainesville. …

“Snail kites aren’t flashy. Males are a slate gray, females a splotchy brown. They get their name from their ability to seemingly float in the air. They were one of the last bird species discovered in the U.S. because of where they live, often hidden in the Everglades.

“Beck says the species is uniquely adapted to subsist almost entirely on a resource usually abundant in the freshwater marshes: apple snails. ‘They have these really long talons that hook around the shell and get a good grip on it to lift it out of the water and carry it away,’ he says. And, they have a long, hooked bill they use to pry the snails from their shells.

“Over the past century, as much of their habitat was drained and water stopped flowing through parts of the Everglades, the snail kite population plummeted. It was one of the first birds put on the endangered species list in the 1960’s. Droughts contributed to the snail kite’s decline and by 2007, there were fewer than 800 remaining. ‘Right shortly after that though, this invasive snail came in, and just started flourishing, getting into every wetland, having these big population booms,’ Beck says. …

“Beck eases the airboat up next to a willow tree where he’s spotted a nest. Standing in the boat, this one is at eye level. He says, ‘We’ve got two little nestling snail kites. These are probably about ten days old. The parents, you can hear them over us, they’re upset that we’re at their nest.’ Beck and Jeffrey mark the location, water levels, height of the nest and then motor away. The parents soon return, carrying snails.

“No one’s sure about how the exotic snails were introduced into the Everglades. They’re related to Florida’s apple snails and are commonly used in home aquariums. The invader, the Island apple snail, is found in similar habitat in South America and is larger than its Florida cousin. …

“Efforts to restore Florida’s Everglades have helped the snail kite, bringing back native vegetation and restoring the flow of water to once-parched marshes. It’s been in the works for more than 30 years with a cost of more than $20 billion. But progress is incremental and hard to measure. In the meantime, scientists say the invasive snail may have saved the snail kite.

“But University of Florida scientist Robert Fletcher is concerned about the potential impact the species will have on the Everglades over the long-term. He says, ‘What we should be thinking about is how do we restore native snails to get those benefits.’ “

More at NPR, here. Lots of pictures. No firewall.

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Moving Water from Here to There

April 17, 2023 by suzannesmom

Photo: Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor.
Jeff Dollente, a zanjero for the Imperial Irrigation District, greets the sunrise on his morning shift delivering water to farm fields in Imperial County, California, Feb. 15, 2023. The water originates from the Colorado River.

Suzanne’s friend Kevin was here last month. He had some interesting thoughts about floods in California, droughts other places, and how great it would be to move excess water from flooded places to drought-stricken ones.

Today’s story, by Sarah Matusek at the Christian Science Monitor, is a bit different, but it describes one way people are already moving water to where it’s needed.

“In the right light, Jeff Dollente seems to make the sun rise. Standing over a canal, he cranks a wheel as the sun ascends and the sky yawns off the dark. … He delivers Colorado River water – a vital resource at risk –to farms that feed the rest of the United States.

“He’s a ‘zanjero,’ Spanish for ditch rider, for the Imperial Irrigation District, the area’s public-water and energy agency. California is entitled to the largest share of Colorado River water among seven basin states, and within that, the agency has the single largest entitlement, almost all of which goes to agriculture. Upping the ante: The river is the Imperial Irrigation District’s only water source. 

“The crisis on the Colorado River, strained by overuse and the effects of climate change, is unlikely to reverse due to recent heavy rain and snow, experts say. While critical lows along the river threaten water supplies and hydropower, California hasn’t agreed with other states this year on who should conserve how much – though the Imperial Valley is a controversial target of calls for cuts.

“As the federal government prepares to weigh in and high-level talks continue, so do zanjero daily duties on the ground. It takes focus and precision to safeguard each drop of liquid gold. …

“The Imperial Irrigation District is entitled to 3.1 million acre-feet of Colorado River water a year, though it uses less. (In 2021, for example, the district reports conserving 485,709 acre-feet.) The district also has among the most senior water rights on the river; junior water rights holders are generally expected to take cuts first. Imperial Valley growers – touting their efforts in farm-based conservation – are trying to hold on to a water-intensive farming tradition that’s more than a century old.

“Greening nearly half a million acres of farmland flanked by desert, the district gets its Colorado River water from the Imperial Dam on the California-Arizona border. The water nourishes alfalfa, winter vegetables, and other crops to the west – passing through some 3,000 miles of canals and drains – and then runs off into the Salton Sea. Robert Schettler, public information officer, calls it a daily miracle. …

“It’s a high-stakes relay race. From the Imperial Dam, water flows into the major All-American Canal, which feeds into three main canals, and then is directed into a series of lateral canals. Zanjeros – who oversee the lateral canals 24/7 – usher that water to delivery gates at the edge of farm fields, according to how much has been ordered. …

“Today on the Redwood Canal, he’s tasked with delivering water measured in cubic feet per second. At one stop, he raises a gate a mere inch higher to adjust the flow.

“ ‘They’re the face of the district to the farmer,’ says Ralph Strahm, co-owner of Strahm Farms Inc. in Holtville. ‘They’re the ones that save the system from breaching if there’s a problem.’

“Some days are stressful for Mr. Dollente. But he’s never fallen in. He’ll often clean canals of trash – a tumbleweed today. One time he found a cow, another time a gun. 

The water district employs around 140 zanjeros, currently all male. … The term comes from the word zanja, or ditch, and describes part of the irrigation practices introduced by Spanish settlers in what would become California. Zanjeros have worked for the Imperial Irrigation District since it formed in 1911, once living in houses near the waterways they tended. …

“The role has also evolved alongside technology like cellphones. Mr. Strahm, the farmer, works closely with zanjeros and keeps their contacts in his phone. Still, he says he’d like to see the water district adopt more automation, which is widespread but most extensive along the larger canals, to support conservation.

“ ‘We need more accurate and timely delivery of water with recording devices to alert the zanjero when the water fluctuates,’ says the grower.

“Water-saving measures that he favors, like sprinkler or drip irrigation, don’t work when water fluctuates, he adds. ‘If there’s too little, the system shuts off. And if there’s too much, it can’t be used. It just goes to waste.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

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Azores Photos

April 16, 2023 by suzannesmom

New Zealand Christmas Tree, also called ironwood, according to my PictureThis app. The video shows only one very spread-out tree, our “magic tree.”

We spent last week in the Azores, courtesy of Suzanne’s organizational skills, Erik’s driving skills, and the kids’ school vacation.

It was beautiful. The Azores are a group of nine volcanic islands in the North Atlantic. The temperature was 50s and 60s F. We were on Sao Miguel island only. I have a lot of pictures to show you, crossing my fingers that you like derelict buildings as much as I do. There were plenty of spiffy modern buildings — some probably vacation homes for people who can handle frequent air travel — but for me, the crumbling, mossy ones were more picturesque.

The entrance to the “magic tree” park features a lion gate. The lions are made in the local ceramics factory, where we bought tiles. The flower is bird-of-paradise.

We loved the volcanic hot springs everywhere. Some family members went in a muddy one (muddy from iron in the water). It was about the temperature of a hot tub, 102 F. I joined them when they tried the clear hot springs. Fences protected visitors from the boiling ones.

The streets are very narrow. I couldn’t imagine getting in an out of the green garage door below. The sidewalks are nearly nonexistent, and everything stops when the fish van with its loud horn gets stuck behind a grocer loading boxes.

The cemetery was unlike any I have seen before. Nearby, I saw cows grazing. There are more cows than people in the Azores (125,000 as of 2020). Wonderful cheeses. I think I have identified the main dairy cows as Holstein Friesians.

The grotto is in Porta Delgada in one of the many botanical gardens (really the whole island was a botanical garden). Next is the tea plantation, the only one in Europe (Europe because the Azores are part of Portugal).

Check out the close-up of the ubiquitous volcanic rock, basalt, used for everything. Water and gases in lava formed the fossil bubbles. The black ornamentation on churches and chapels is “basaltic relief.”

Many homes have early morning bread deliveries that get hung on doorknobs or left on the doorsill.

My granddaughter, 8, edited the photo of a market’s fruit baskets.

Nearly every home has some kind of saint watching over it, in the form of a ceramic plaque handmade in the factory on Sao Miguel.

A phone booth had been turned into a little library in Porta Delgada.

Nasturtiums, poppies, fresh-air laundry, moss. I worked hard at capturing one of each of these common sights.

Boiling volcanic spring.
The farm dog did not want me so near the goats.

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