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Calm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

John-E-tughole

An article by Gretchen Reynolds at the New York Times “Well” blog details new research on the stress-reducing effects of walking in nature.

Reynolds writes, “City dwellers [have] a higher risk for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses than people living outside urban centers …

“Various studies have found that urban dwellers with little access to green spaces have a higher incidence of psychological problems than people living near parks and that city dwellers who visit natural environments have lower levels of stress hormones immediately afterward than people who have not recently been outside.

“But just how a visit to a park or other green space might alter mood has been unclear. Does experiencing nature actually change our brains in some way that affects our emotional health? That possibility intrigued Gregory Bratman, a graduate student at the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.

In his “new study, which was published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mr. Bratman and his collaborators decided to closely scrutinize what effect a walk might have on a person’s tendency to brood. … Such rumination [is] strongly associated with increased activity in a portion of the brain known as the subgenual prefrontal cortex.”

The results: “As might have been expected, walking along the highway had not soothed people’s minds. Blood flow to their subgenual prefrontal cortex was still high and their broodiness scores were unchanged. But the volunteers who had strolled along the quiet, tree-lined paths showed slight but meaningful improvements in their mental health, according to their scores on the questionnaire. They were not dwelling on the negative aspects of their lives as much as they had been before the walk.” More here.

As we used to chant to our overexcited dog when we picked her up after a grooming, “I’m calm, you’re calm.”

Try out this Derek Wolcott poem for your walk in the woods. It is read on SoundCloud by my husband’s college classmate, Jon Kabat-Zinn.

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Poetry Birdhouse

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I was in New Shoreham in the spring, stopping at the bagel place, and Suzanne pointed out that on a patio table there was a little birdhouse where people were encouraged to contribute a poem to a small notebook. I added a haiku and a jingle I wrote decades ago.

Two days later, it hit me. I had participated in Poetry of the Wild, and I had written about it already here.

Rhode Island Monthly had a bit more on the subject.

Poetry Project founder and former RI poet laureate Lisa Starr told reporter Casey Nilsson about the April weekend when Poetry of the Wild was to be launched. “We’re finding ways to expose people to things that they might not be exposed to, to broaden the horizon while working on creative projects.

“One of the English teachers, Nancy Greenaway, started a project, Favorite Poems: Voices from the Village. She finds members of the community who have never come to a Poetry Project — like the guy who runs the deli or the music teacher — and asks them to choose their favorite poem … Nobody knows who they are until the day of the event.”

Starr also describes the new addition to the Poetry Project weekend, Poetry of the Wild: “a public art installation featuring boxes made by members of the community that contain a particular poem. The poems are meant to enhance whatever setting they’re in.

“The tech ed teacher at the Block Island School, Mark Mollicone, and the art teacher, Lisa Robb, [were eager to help.] They worked with the entire seventh and eighth grade class. Each student either made their own box or partnered with somebody. The kindergarten class made their own box and the first graders worked with a local bookshop owner on a box, too.”

The boxes were ultimately placed around the island. And I saw a birdhouse-like box outside the bagel shop.

More here.

Photo: Rhode Island Monthly
Carrying a box for a poem past Harbor Baptist Church, New Shoreham.

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Summer in New England

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 25, 2015| 2 Comments »

There was a band at the July 25 sidewalk sale, and I tried to capture the exuberance of a young lady who knew exactly what to do. Then I passed by and bought lots of sidewalk sale cut-price goodies.

Next I’m posting three photos of the Fort Point section of Boston. I never tire of the old buildings. Do you like the iron railing and the way light is cast on one wall in the way we think of shadows being cast? Another building has a shadow of backwards words from a sign. If you look closely (and can read reverse images), you can almost see the word “industrial.” It’s a ghost. Very appropriate for Fort Point, where industry is now mostly a ghost among glass-box office buildings.

From there, we move on to Rhode Island on a gray day — a stone wall gate and a quiet harbor.

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Write Why You Should Be President

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2015| 2 Comments »

Thomas Whaley, a teacher of 7-year-old English-language learners on Long Island came up with a creative way to build confidence while building writing skills. He has students make the case for why they should be president.

Jasmine Garsd reports at National Public Radio, “Whaley does not look like the kind of guy that dabbles in magic markers. Before he was a second-grade teacher, he worked at a public relations company in New York City.

“He says he started thinking about doing something else while riding to and from work on the Long Island Rail Road. ‘I would talk with people on the train at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on the way home,’ he recalls. ‘They were people who had a complete disconnect from the young people of the world. They were all so focused on adults and the rat race. And I realized that this was not for me.’

“That was 16 years ago. He has been teaching ever since.

“In addition, Whaley has found time to write a novel called Leaving Montana, and he’s starting to write children’s books. Last year, he won the New York state teacher-of-the-year award.

“This second-grade presidential campaign is an example of why. He tells me he got the idea when he asked the children one day to raise their hands if they thought they could never be a U.S. president.

“The answer broke his heart.

” ‘Almost every single child who is an English-language learner believed that they couldn’t be,’ Whaley recalls. They’d say things like, ‘ “I can’t run for president because my parents are from a different country.” That was a biggie. “Because I’m poor, and you need a lot of money to be the president.” “Because I don’t like to read, or I can’t read.” ‘

“Whaley says the presidential speech project is about more than just learning to read and speak in public. He wants these kids to learn to boast about themselves.

” ‘Bragging about yourself, and your best qualities,’ Whaley says, ‘is very difficult for a child who came into the classroom not feeling any confidence whatsoever to read three or four words.’

“Robert Epstein, the principal at Canaan Elementary, says this is the essence of what makes Whaley such a great teacher.

” ‘There’s a sense of community that’s really unsurpassed,’ and the students will take risks as a result, Epstein says. He adds that Whaley goes above and beyond what is expected of him as a teacher. ‘If one needs sneakers, I’ve seen him go out and buy sneakers. He’s gone to homes. He’s constantly on the phone, constantly emailing parents.’ ”

More at NPR.

Photo: Christopher Gregory for NPR
Thomas Whaley walks his students back to class from the library.

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A Helen Keller Moment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2015| 2 Comments »

You remember that breathtaking moment in the movie The Miracle Worker, when a fiercely determined Annie Sullivan finally gets through to a recalcitrant Helen Keller that her hand signals are words and words have meaning? Well, revelations like Helen’s continue to happen to children, as in the recent viral video of a baby getting a first pair of glasses. The dawning wonder and smiles are so touching.

Today, Maria Popova posted a video at Brain Pickings of a deaf teen in Uganda whose silent world opens in a similar flash, and it is powerful. The TV report that captured that moment is obviously edited, but I find it convincing and moving.

According to the YouTube blurb, Patrick Otema, 15, is profoundly deaf. “In the remote area of Uganda where he lives, there are no schools for deaf children, and he has never had a conversation. Raymond Okkelo, a sign language teacher, hopes to change all this and offer Patrick a way out of the fearful silence he has known his whole life.”

Popova recommends you watch the video, then pair it with Helen Keller’s thoughts on optimism.

Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. … Can anyone who escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?
My early experience was thus a leap from bad to good. If I tried, I could not check the momentum of my first leap out of the dark; to move breast forward as a habit learned suddenly at that first moment of release and rush into the light. With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to hope.

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Charitable Venture Capital

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a story about venture capital with a do-good focus.

Sacha Pfeiffer writes at the Boston Globe, “Among entrepreneurs, there’s a dreaded place called the Valley of Death. That’s where startup companies go when they run out of funding before making money on their own, and it’s an especially common fate for clean-energy startups, like manufacturers of solar panels and wind turbines. …

“But what if that early-stage, high-risk financing could instead come from philanthropists, who aren’t driven by profit? Later, traditional investors could step in and supply continued funding.

“That’s the concept behind PRIME Coalition, a year-old Cambridge nonprofit that has pooled $1 million from wealthy donors, including Hollywood actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, as seed money for its first investment: an energy storage startup company. …

“PRIME rethinks the traditional definition of charitable work and charitable giving. Its founder, 30-year-old MIT graduate Sarah Kearney, argues that companies whose products or services reduce greenhouse gases are doing a social good, just like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, so they should be able to receive philanthropic funding. In this case, the social benefits include conserving the environment and fighting climate change.

“The group searches for early-stage alternative energy companies … then locates philanthropists or socially minded for-profit investors to fund them. Those could include charitable foundations, investment offices of wealthy families, and donor-advised funds. …

“Peter Rothstein, president of the New England Clean Energy Council, said philanthropic funding ‘can make a significant dent’ in filling the need for early-stage capital for clean-tech companies.” More here.

It is not unheard of for philanthropy to put its investment dollars into companies that provide a social good. Read about the Heron Foundation’s decision to do so some years back in “Expanding Philanthropy’s Reach: Mission-Related Investing,” here.

Photo: Lane Turner/Globe Staff
PRIME Coalition founder Sarah Kearney says that companies whose products or services reduce greenhouse gases are doing a social good and should be able to receive philanthropic funding.

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Fountain and Other Boston Photos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2015| 4 Comments »

The little Vine video is of the fountain that children love in the Greenway. Nearby is the old State House, looking refined in the shadow of tall, impersonal modernities.

I took a photo of the sign explaining some new sculptures. They turn out to be part of the Design Biennial in Boston.

In the Dewey Square section of the Greenway, I also love the farmers market that materializes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Note the sunflowers, flourishing in the Greenway’s demonstration garden. The narrow, decrepit building behind them always intrigues me. What would you do with it if it were yours? It’s a valuable location that no one seems to want. What about a pocket performance space?

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Alice in Wonderland in Pashto

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Alice in Wonderland is turning 150, and several media outlets feature articles on its many translations, visual interpretations, and anniversary celebrations.

Jane L. Levere writes at the New York Times, “Stephanie Lovett, president of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, which is coordinating many of the exhibitions and activities, described the two Alice novels as ‘likely the most frequently quoted works of fiction in the English-speaking world, standing alongside only Shakespeare in frequency of citation.’ They are also among the most widely illustrated and translated pieces of English fiction, she said, published in more than 170 languages in several thousand editions. …

“Interpretations of the stories and anecdotes about their relevance to today’s readers abound. … For Carolyn Vega, curator of the exhibition at the Morgan, the appeal of both ‘Alice’ books is that they are essentially about learning how to ‘navigate the world’ — a challenge that she said remained highly relevant today.

“Derick Dreher, director of the Rosenbach, called ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ ‘an adventure story with almost unparalleled innovation.’ … He also emphasized the elements of science and logic that Carroll wove into the book, which tend to intrigue puzzle lovers. And, Mr. Dreher said, it’s about ‘overcoming adversity.’ “

My own take: It’s about the impenetrability of grownups’ rules and how they often fail to apply the rules to their own behavior — and about a practical little girl trying to cope. And a lot besides.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal notes that Alice “is marking its 150th anniversary with new translations. She is Alis (in Yiddish), or Alisi (in Tongan) or Anya (in Russian), and, despite her advanced age, to readers everywhere she remains a curious youngster whose adventures have never gone out of print.

“Two Yale professors are translating ‘Alice’ into Late Egyptian hieroglyphs. A language consultant in California is putting the finishing touches on a Kazakh translation. There is an emoji version. An edition in Scouse, the dialect of Liverpool, is with the publisher; so are ones in Cockney rhyming slang and in two Afghan languages, Dari and Pashto. The Gothic translation came out just last week.”

(Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal‘s article is behind a firewall.)

Photo: Alice150 (click to see a surprising array of cover illustrations)

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Seeing Wonder in Found Objects

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2015| 2 Comments »

In India, a man who saw sculptural possibilities in castaways has left behind hundreds of pieces of art in a public rock garden.

Nida Najarm writes in the NY Times obituary, “Nek Chand, an Indian artist who rose to prominence by quietly building a sprawling kingdom of folk sculptures in northern India that became one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, died on [June 12] in Chandigarh. He was 90. …

“Mr. Chand’s life’s work, known as the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, covers several acres and is populated by rock sculptures and figures of dancing women and animals, many of them fashioned from found objects like the mudguards of motorcycles and broken bangles.

“It stands in contrast to the striking if neglected government buildings conceived by Le Corbusier, who planned Chandigarh — the capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana — in the 1950s.

“For some, the Rock Garden, which has thousands of visitors a day, is an antidote to what, with its stark Modernist buildings, is seen as something of a bureaucrat’s city. …

“Mr. Chand was born Nek Chand Saini on Dec. 15, 1924, in the village of Barian Kalan, which became part of Pakistan after partition. He was newly arrived in the city of Chandigarh just after India’s independence in 1947. He worked for the government as a road inspector, according to the Department of Chandigarh Tourism website. But, [Rupan Deol Bajaj, a retired government functionary] said, he became fascinated by found objects, including weather-beaten rocks.

“ ‘I started building this garden as a hobby’ in the 1950s, he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse in December. ‘I had many ideas, I was thinking all the time. I saw beauty and art in what people said was junk.’

“By night he slipped onto a patch of land and artfully arranged rocks and construction waste behind a barricade of empty tar drums.”

The garden was a secret for a long time. When the authorities learned about it, a debate on its future ensued. But, says the Times reporter, “a groundswell of support led to its official opening to the public in 1976.” More here.

Photo: Reuters
Nek Chand, at 76, next to one of his sculptures. He died in June at age 90.

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The Moose Belongs to No One (and More)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2015| 1 Comment »

I think this children’s book, reviewed at Brain Pickings, is one I need to buy.

Maria Popova writes, “This Moose Belongs to Me (public library) — a disarming story about a boy who believes he owns his pet moose Marcel, only to discover that so do other people, who call him by different names, while the moose himself doesn’t quite get the concept of being owned and is thus oblivious to the boy’s list of rules for being a good pet. …

“For the backgrounds of his illustrated vignettes, Jeffers reapporpriates classical landscape paintings by a mid-century Slovakian painter named Alexander Dzigurski, rendering the project a sort of posthumous collaboration and a creative mashup.”

Read the intriguingly philosophical Brain Pickings review here.

And here is a children’s book reviewed by Asakiyume that embraces insights about both the environment and other cultures.

She writes, “Discarded plastic bags are more than just an ugly nuisance in the West African nation of the Gambia. There, plastic shopping bags kill livestock that eat them and provide a breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

“A woman named Isatou Ceesay found an ingenious solution. She learned how to make plarn [yarn made from plastic bags], and, with her friends, started crocheting small change purses from the discarded plastic bags, which she and her friends sold. The trash problem — and attendant health risks — disappeared, and Isatou and her friends had a new source of income. The project was so successful that Isatou started teaching women in other villages, and in 2012 she won the International Alliance for Women’s World of Difference award.

“Miranda Paul, a writer who has lived and taught in the Gambia, wrote about Isatou in One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia (illustrated by the fabulous Elizabeth Zunon).” Lots of reasons for buying that book here, at Asakiyume’s blog.

Art: Oliver Jeffers

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Kindergartens Revisit Playtime

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I read this NY Times article with relief. It seems that educators are returning to (or perhaps being heard about) the importance of play in learning.

Reporter Motoko Rich says, “Call it Kindergarten 2.0. Concerned that kindergarten has become overly academic in recent years, this suburban school district south of Baltimore is introducing a new curriculum in the fall for 5-year-olds. Chief among its features is a most old-fashioned concept: play.

“ ‘I feel like we have been driving the car in the wrong direction for a long time,’ said Carolyn Pillow, who has taught kindergarten for 15 years and attended a training session here on the new curriculum last month. ‘We can’t forget about the basics of what these kids need, which is movement and opportunities to play and explore.’

“As American classrooms have focused on raising test scores in math and reading … even the youngest students have been affected, with more formal lessons and less time in sandboxes. But these days, states like Vermont, Minnesota and Washington are again embracing play as a bedrock of kindergarten. …

“Still, teachers like Therese Iwancio, who works at Cecil Elementary School in Baltimore’s Greenmount neighborhood, where the vast majority of children come from low-income families, say their students benefit from explicit academic instruction. She does not have a sand table, play kitchen or easel in the room. …

“Traci Burns, who has taught kindergarten for the last five years at Annapolis Elementary School, said she was looking forward to retrieving previously banished easels.

“ ‘With the Common Core, this has been pushed and pushed and pushed that kids should be reading, sitting and listening,’ she said. ‘Five-year-olds need to play and color. They need to go out and sing songs.’

“At Hilltop Elementary, a racially and economically diverse school in Glen Burnie, Melissa Maenner said she had found that teaching kindergartners too many straightforward academic lessons tended to flop.

“ ‘They are 5,’ Ms. Maenner said. ‘Their attention span is about five minutes.’ ”

Read more here.

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Picture Book for Grownups

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I have enjoyed Maria Popova’s reviews of children’s books at Brain Pickings and have been moved to buy quite a few.

This is the first picture book for grown-ups I’ve seen at her site, a kind of meditation on living life, with watercolors of an Everyman thinking about things.

Popova writes, “French-born, Baltimore-based artist Jean-Pierre Weill explores in The Well of Being (public library) — an extraordinary ‘children’s book for adults,’ three years in the making, that peers into the depths of the human experience and the meaning of our existence, tracing how the stories we tell ourselves to construct our personae obscure the truth of our personhood, and how we can untell them in order to just be. …

“Weill dances across the Big Bang, the teachings of the 18th-century Italian philosopher and mystic Ramchal, evolution, 9/11, and life’s most poetic and philosophical dimensions. He tells the lyrical story of a man — an androgynous being who ‘represents Everyman and also Everywoman,’ as Weill explains in the endnotes — moving from the origin of the universe to the perplexities of growing up to the mystery of being alive.”

Here’s a passage:

Is the world not whole? Is it not beautiful?

For now, let’s consider well-being a choice, something you can try on and wear. When we put on the hat and coat of well-being we incline towards joy without special occasion.

More at Brain Pickings, here.

Art: Jean-Pierre Weill 

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Giant Stick Sculpture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

On Sunday, I got to the Peabody Essex Museum early and decided to walk around Salem before going in to see the Thomas Hart Bentons. I thought I might take a look at the hotel where I stayed when DeAnna and Mairtin got married.

I hadn’t gone very far when what should I spy but some very strange constructions made of sticks. Turns out the sculptures, by Patrick Dougherty, were also a PEM exhibition: “Stickwork.”

From Dougherty’s website: “Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Dougherty was raised in North Carolina. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina in 1967 and an M.A. in Hospital and Health Administration from the University of Iowa in 1969. Later, he returned to the University of North Carolina to study art history and sculpture.

“Combining his carpentry skills with his love of nature, Patrick began to learn more about primitive techniques of building and to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. In 1982 his first work, Maple Body Wrap, was included in the North Carolina Biennial Artists’ Exhibition, sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art. In the following year, he had his first one-person show entitled, ‘Waitin’ It Out,’ in Maple at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

“His work quickly evolved from single pieces on conventional pedestals to monumental scale environmental works, which required saplings by the truckloads. Over the last thirty years, he has built over 250 of these works, and become internationally acclaimed. His sculpture has been seen worldwide—from Scotland to Japan to Brussels, and all over the United States.” More at http://www.stickwork.net.

Aren’t artists something? They just follow where it leads. Nobody gets them into windowless rooms to discuss strategy, goals, subgoals, benchmarks, measures, or evaluation.

Although, I suppose, if Dougherty started out in hospital management, he was subjected to lots of that sort of thing.

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July Photos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2015| 2 Comments »

This group of photos starts with four from New Shoreham, including the Southeast Light and the posters on the food truck.

Next we have two sides of a utility box in Arlington, Mass. — the work of local artists. Many other utility boxes around town are painted, all charming.

The old, unused water works building always strikes me as a perfect setting for a mystery novel. The dog in the next photo is checking out the portable Uni library in the Greenway, an initiative of Sam and Leslie Davol.

The lushness of the hydrangeas this year makes me think of sheep. I start singing, “Sheep may safely graze and pasture/ In a watchful shepherd’s eye.”

And you know clouds.

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Thomas Hart Benton

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Art: Thomas Hart Benton
One of my favorites: Spring on the Missouri, 1945, oil and tempera on Masonite panel. On loan to the PEM from the North Carolina Museum of Art.

 

 

When I was moonlighting as a theater reviewer, I always liked to “sleep on it” before writing anything, just in case my unconscious had anything useful to add.

Well, I slept on the big Thomas Hart Benton exhibition I saw yesterday, and sleep confirmed that certain lesser-known aspects of his work are troubling. I still adore the wavy energy of his landscapes, people, horses, trains, clouds, smoke, even fence posts. I still love the way Benton honors ordinary people and ordinary jobs and the way his paintings comment on social injustice.

But I really did not like the gruesome murals of invading armies that Benton created to jolt overly complacent Americans after Pearl Harbor. There was something cheap about them.

Of course, there was a lot more than that to the exhibition “American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood,” a sweeping retrospective of most of the artist’s work: murals showing Indians or slaves being mistreated, paintings of the the vibrant life of the West and Midwest, detailed depictions of the inner workings of Hollywood sets, designs for the Henry Fonda version of The Grapes of Wrath, illustrations for an edition of Huckleberry Finn, posters touting the contributions of African Americans to the war effort.

The day before, I had been hearing about Irving Berlin’s dedication to the war effort, and I think these two different artists conveyed, more viscerally than I had previously experienced, the underlying fear prevalent at that time. Since I grew up after it was all over, I probably unconsciously assumed that everyone always knew the Allies would win.

Do go to the show at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. You have until September 7. An enormous array of Benton’s work has been gathered from near and far — and there are some intriguing movie clips. (I was moved by a character’s tears to put The Grapes of Wrath on my Netflix list.)

Details of the exhibition here, at the PEM website.

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