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Posts Tagged ‘postaday’

Camping in a Bubble

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2014| 2 Comments »

The Globe travel section had some fun recently with unusual sleeping structures offered to travelers. This goes beyond accommodations on stilts in the South Seas.

Diane Bair and Pamela Wright report, “Cradled in a ‘human nest’ made of twigs and branches, on a hillside above the Pacific Ocean, we drifted off to dreamland to the sounds of barking sea lions and crashing waves, a relaxation mix tape made by Mother Nature herself.

“This is camping? Nope. It’s a kind of ‘glamping,’ a.k.a. glamorous camping. While the human nest isn’t wildly luxurious, it’s certainly unique, one of the hallmarks of the glamping experience. ‘Yurts, treehouses, domes, eco-pods, barns, bell tents, cabins, and safari tents — whatever you choose, it’s going to be original,’ says Katie Stearns of Glamping Hub, an online site with 1,200 listings. In addition, ‘you have an incredibly unique access to nature,’ Stearns says.”

Click here to see photos of an Oregon tree-house for grownups, glass igloos in Finland, and lots of other imaginative places to bed down around the world.

Photo: Boston Globe
“Dreamcatcher” bubble, part of a colony of five bubbles set in a Provencal pine forest near Marseille

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“Spamalot” at the Players

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Wow, what an awesome job the Concord Players did with this goofy musical by the folks who brought you Monty Python!

Spamalot had so many insane costume changes, extravagant production numbers, and giddy jokes that it never allowed you a minute to think how silly it all is.

We laughed a lot. They say laughing is good for your health, and I can see why it is good for mental health at least — when you are really laughing, you can’t think about anything but the thing that is making you laugh. So you’re really “living in the moment,” as the gurus advise.

Tom was one of the trumpet players (not the one who gets shot by the conductor for playing the wrong trumpet themes in the overture), and Claire gave a party after the matinee. Wisely, she decided not to emphasize Spam for the meal (“No one would have come to the party,” she said) and instead presented a delicious spread with a Cinco de Mayo theme.

Several guests cracked out their smart phones to inform us about what Cinco de Mayo celebrates (the 1862 defeat of the French by Mexicans at Pueblo — not sure I feel much wiser, though).

Spamalot is sold out. But it was sold out today, too, and I saw a few empty seats, so take a chance — maybe a ticket holder won’t show up. The woman next to me was offended by some of the naughtiness and irreverence and left at intermission. So you could always come for the second half.

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Sunshine in Rhode Island

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photos: Above, Herreshoff Marine Museum, Bristol, RI.
Below: Suzanne’s Mom

A certain napless two-year-old wore out five devoted adults in Rhode Island today — but what a fine time we had! From the Blithewold estate, to the yacht museum, to the playground, it was a grand way to spend a warm spring day near the sea.

And so, to bed … zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Blithewold-Bristol-R!

 

 

 

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Conduct Your Own Orchestra

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2014| 2 Comments »

I can think of a few people I know who would love to conduct an orchestra just once.

A couple years ago, I was telling Suzanne and Erik how the Melrose Symphony Orchestra had a drawing at the Holiday Pops concert for an audience member to conduct the last number, and Erik said he would really love to do that. Given that he won a business-plan competition yesterday, he might feel like conducting an orchestra right now. Since there’s no orchestra handy, the next best thing might be an electronic simulator.

Writes Liz Stinson for Wired, “Most of us will never get the chance to conduct a real symphony orchestra, and that’s probably for the best. But a fake symphony orchestra made up of towering speakers, motion controllers, and touchscreens? Totally doable.

“A new installation at the Mendelssohn Museum in Leipzig, Germany lets you do exactly that, no music school required. The Mendelssohn Effektorium, by design studio WhiteVOID, is an interactive installation that allows you to have complete control over a virtual symphony. In this world you’re Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and your instruments come in the form of 13 upright speakers with digital displays on them.

“Each of these speakers corresponds to a certain instrument group: woodwinds, brass, percussion, vocals and so on. It’s up you how much spotlight each instrument gets and how fast the tempo moves.” More at Wired. Be sure to play the video demonstration of someone conducting this way.

Photo: WhiteVOID
A Leap Motion sensor calculates your speed based on the pendulum interval of your movements and adjusts the tempo accordingly.

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Happy May Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2014| 2 Comments »


Photo: Bryn Mawr College

Happy May Day, the old-fashioned kind that involves surprise flowers and dancing around the May Pole.

This year’s came in like a lion, with icy rain, and is going out like a lamb. Spring can’t be stopped now.

Here are a few photos of the season.

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New at Lugano Museum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2014| 3 Comments »

Photo of Lugano: Wikimedia Commons

Before Suzanne met Erik, she lived for a few years in Lugano, Switzerland. When I visited her, I took in the art museum and remember being exposed to the work of Austrian painter Egon Schiele for the first time.

Today Andrew Sullivan had a post about Museo d’Arte di Lugano, and naturally I zeroed in.

Andrew quotes Andy Cush on the museum’s latest exhibit: “36 ventilators, 4.7m3 packing chips, a new installation from the Swiss artist Zimoun … The artist filled a space inside Switzerland’s Museo d’Arte di Lugano with lots and lots of polystyrene packing peanuts, and uses 36 fans to whip them into a stormy frenzy.”

Watch the video of crashing packing-popcorn waves at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, here.

Lugano is a charming, Italian-speaking city. I passed through there as a teenager, with no premonition of my future connection to the place, just astonishment at palm trees in snow-capped Switzerland. Funny how things turn out.

 

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Julie Weinstein Quilting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2014| 4 Comments »

Although I have known Julie Weinstein mostly as a graphic designer, I learned from many conversations over the years that she has experience in a variety of fields. Lately she has been concentrating on quilting.

I went to see the delightful pieces below at the Emerson Community Arts Center’s Earth Month exhibit, “Life on the Edge.” Completely charming. The panels were inspired by seeing birdwatchers and wondering if the birds watch the watchers. In one panel a woman is birdwatching with binoculars. In another, a bird lifts binoculars to study the woman.

The Umbrella website says, “This year’s theme, ‘Life on the Edge,’ invites us to consider those experiences and places where people and habitats intersect. Also called ecotones, liminal or transitional zones, these points of intersection can spawn collaboration, conflict, beauty, chaos, change, and more.” The show is up until May 5. More details here.

Interesting to see the word “liminal” used for the intersection of people and habitats. At Asakiyume’s blog, her literary readers use liminal and the word “interstitial” to refer to places between worlds and ways of being. Like the platforms where Harry Potter catches a train that ordinary people can’t see.

Come to think of it, that is not so different from the intersection of the natural world and the developed one the art show describes. It’s a place where you might see three large wild turkeys sashaying down the middle of a downtown street, as my husband and I did on a recent Sunday morning.

Quilts: Julie Weinstein

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Vanessa Gould Documentarian

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Greenfusefilms.com

Vanessa Gould, the sister of one of Suzanne’s elementary school buddies, is a documentarian. A while back, she made a Peabody-winning film about makers of advanced origami called Between The Folds. More recently, she was given unheard-of access to the New York Times obituary desk.

Her parents just sent an e-mail about the resulting movie and what Vanessa has been up to in general.

“Vanessa recently worked on Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously, a nine-part series tackling the challenges of climate change. … Vanessa was a producer on several of the stories and did additional cinematography on others. You can see most of her work in episodes three (“Super Storm Sandy”) and nine (“Chilean Andes”). Episode three, “The Rising Tide” with Chris Hayes, airs tonight, Sunday, April 27, at 10 pm on Showtime. … Here are links: http://www.yearsoflivingdangerously.com and https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving. …

“Soon after making Between The Folds, one of the artists in the film passed away. Vanessa alerted the Times of his death, aware that it was unlikely they would run an obituary. And yet – somewhat amazingly – they did, and she assisted them in the unusual process of putting together an editorial obituary. Only three or four such obituaries are written by the NYT staff each day. The whole story of how these obituaries are selected and written, as well as the social history they tell, became her fascination. Hence OBIT will be her next film. Check out these links: http://www.obitdoc.com, http://www.greenfusefilms.com, and www.vanessagould.com.”

I wonder if OBIT will show to what extent the obituaries of famous people are written before they shuffle off this mortal coil. Come to think of it, do any newspapers let people submit their own obit in advance? I recently read a hilarious one that a small paper accepted from the deceased at the insistence of his grandson. It revealed a guy with a terrific sense of humor — not a bad tribute.

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Peter Churchmouse

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2014| 6 Comments »

Photo: 1Funny

Funny thing about memory. I went on Google to find a children’s book my mother liked to read to the children. I thought it was called Gabriel Churchmouse, but in fact it was Peter Churchmouse. It was the churchkitten who was called Gabriel.

Other people on the Internet  had similarly fuzzy memories. One person thought the phrase “I could listen and listen and listen” referred to words that one character heard another say, but I am reasonably sure the phrase was what Gabriel said to Peter when the churchmouse played the organ (or maybe when Peter sang; a picture comes back to me of Peter raising his eyebrows when he sang).

Amazon describes the book thus: “Cute story about Peter, a churchmouse who was so hungry he ate the hymn books. A cat was brought to get rid of him as he was thought to be a rat. When Peter found out the cat was a kitten and the kitten found out the rat was a mouse they grew into a close friendship!”

Peter was eating hymnals to alert the parson to the existence of a hungry churchmouse. He knew that every parson loves a churchmouse. But Parson Pease-Porridge, who was given to exclaiming, “I’ll be twitched!” and was in  need of decent glasses, thought the large bites must belong to a rat.

Here’s a description from an Amazon customer: “Beautifully illustrated, tenderly told stories about a soft-hearted, near sighted, sleepwalking parson, a Churchmouse (not rat!), church kitten and (puppy) dog all learning to live with, and despite, each other. The stories will teach tolerance to young children, and are amusing and witty, too, for older readers, including adults. I read these stories to my daughter 30 years after my mother read them to me and I suspect my daughter will be reading them to her children as well.”

Well, that would be if she can find a copy. The series, by Margot Austin,  is out of print. Read about Austin (1907-1990) on Wikipedia, here.

An animated 1944 short film about another book in the series, Gabriel Churchkitten, lacks Austin’s adorable illustrations, but has the benefit of reminding me that Gabriel had a thinking cap and that there was a churchpuppy called Trumpet.

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The Extreme Life of the Sea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Masaki Miya et al. Wikimedia Creative Commons
Anglerfish use bioluminescence to attract their prey in the darkest depths of the ocean.

When John was little, he liked a book called Fish Do the Strangest Things. Strangeness is a great focus for a nature book, because everyone likes offbeat critters.

Steve Curwood, founder of the radio show Living on Earth, recently interviewed the author of a book that focuses on the strangeness of ocean life.

CURWOOD: “In an engaging new book called The Extreme Life of the Sea, biologist Steve Palumbi and his novelist son Tony deepen our understanding of how strange sea life has managed to survive against all odds. … Why did you write this book. Why now?

PALUMBI: “Well, the real reason is that we’re trying an experiment: can you take the narrative style and approach that a novelist would use and combine it with what a scientist would do? … You don’t really care about the plot until you care about the characters, and so we wanted to write a book that made you care about the characters.

CURWOOD: “Now, you write about the extreme life of the sea, the oldest, the hottest, the shallowest, to name a few. Why did you choose this approach?

PALUMBI: “Because it was a way of getting people’s attention to the really sort of amazing things that these critters do. Organisms in the sea live in some of the hottest places, they live in some of the coldest places, and how they do that is something marine scientists have paid a lot of attention to. So it was really a way to make it more engaging, more fun, and to let us move credibly between different kinds of organisms all in the same chapter. …

CURWOOD: “You had one extreme that you called immortal.

PALUMBI: “That’s an amazing jellyfish called turritopsis, and it has the remarkable ability to age in reverse. So when the environment is bad, this animal can essentially go from its adult body form back, back, back to its larval form, and then start all over again. … It’s called transdifferentiation. It’s the only critter known to be able to do that.”

More here, where you can read the rest of the transcript and listen to the recording. It’s all pretty amazing.

Photo: Eddie Welker, Flickr Creative Commons 2.0)
Clownfish

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Gooper Feathers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 24, 2014| 4 Comments »

Photo: Garden of Eden Orchards

One of the great things about going for a walk is that your mind just wanders off on its own. You never know what it will bring back.

Today as I was walking, a phrase popped into my head that I haven’t thought of in decades: gooper feathers. As a very little girl, I liked to watch my father shave. When he was done, he would show me how soft his cheek was. He would say, “See: gooper feathers.”

I have no idea why I thought of that today. But I had to go to Google and see what I could learn. Here’s all I found about gooper feathers: “The fuzz from peaches, according to an Amos ‘n’ Andy phonograph record from the late 1920s or thereabouts.”

Two other old-timey things got looked up today. After I said to Bob, who was getting into the up elevator when he wanted to go down, “Wrong-way Corrigan,” he looked the guy up.

You can click on the NY Times and Wikipedia learn about Corrigan. Here’s Wikipedia: “an American aviator born in Galveston, Texas. He was nicknamed ‘Wrong Way’ in 1938. After a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew … to Ireland, though his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach. He claimed his unauthorized flight was due to a navigational error … He had been denied permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and his ‘navigational error’ was seen as deliberate.”

That train of thought led me to One-Eyed Connelly. My father used to call a rather bold pigeon of his acquaintance One-eyed Connelly because the bird would alight on the deck and sashay into the house through any open door. The original One-eyed Connelly was a famous gate crasher. A former bantam weight boxer from Boston, Connelly began crashing events in the early 20th century, sometimes pretending to be a deputy sheriff.  Read that character’s story in the 1953 Milwaukee Journal.

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The Midnight Ride and the Marathon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2014| 6 Comments »

Late Sunday night, Kevin, a colleague who is a bicyclist, completed the Midnight Ride.

It’s an event that started a few years ago when one guy suggested to some fellow bikers that they bike the Boston Marathon route the night before the big event.

Stacey Leasca of the Los Angeles Times has the story.

“For the last six years, the Midnight Marathon Bike Ride has covered the Boston Marathon course the night before the race, as a way for more Bostonians to take part.

” ‘It was a way for me, who is not a runner, to connect with Boston, to connect with all this marathon energy,’ said Greg Hum, the ride’s originator.

“Although the Boston Athletic Assn., which oversees the Boston Marathon, has never officially sanctioned the ride, it has become a celebrated tradition to help kick off Marathon Monday.

“The night before the 2013 race, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Assn. even provided riders with a special commuter train to get them to the start of the route.

“This year, however, race officials and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency asked that the ride be canceled, and the MBTA did not offer its Midnight Marathon train. …

“But the Midnight Marathon had momentum that he and the agencies could not derail.

“Once word spread that there would be no train from downtown Boston to the starting line, riders began organizing carpools, vans, trucks and even a few buses via social media to help get them to the start.”

Kevin said Hum really wasn’t an organizer, just a guy whose idea grew, and he didn’t know any way to call it off. So it happened. There were people cheering along the route, even that late. Kevin got home at 2 a.m., exhilarated. His toddler woke him bright and early on Patriots Day, the day closely associated with another midnight ride.

More here.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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An Actual Spring Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2014| 6 Comments »

4th-floor-roof-gardenIt may get colder, but there’s no turning back now. It’s spring for sure.

Here is a greening-up roof garden maintained by a brilliant landscaper at work. The tree in the foreground is my second favorite of his twisty trees. The first favorite is behind glass, and when I try to snap it, I just get a picture of Suzanne’s Mom taking a picture.

In other photos: The wind was causing a cow balloon to pull against its tether. A bumblebee was one of 20 in my neighbor’s weeping cherry. See it at the top of the picture.

Orange jackets from yesterday’s happy Boston Marathon were lined up for a city tour. And in the Rose Kennedy Greenway, several organizations, including the Coast Guard and Life is good were volunteering for clean-up duty as part of Earth Day.

And speaking of Earth Day, you can enjoy a genuine earthy-crunchy Earth Day celebration in Concord on Saturday. The parade is always a hoot. Check out details here.

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Easter with Grandchildren

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 20, 2014| 4 Comments »

flowering-tree-BostonlEven though it was a bit chilly early on, the flowering trees and sunshine suggested that spring isn’t going back on us.

After church, we had a lively, chaotic Easter egg hunt and marching band with grandkids who are 1, 2, and 4 and very funny.

Then came a leisurely brunch with a beautiful fruit salad from my daughter-in-law, and new recipe for egg strata that turned out very well.

My husband and I got a little bonus time with Suzanne and Erik as the three of us tried to tire out the two-year-old in the playground before his car ride back home.

Suzanne is always up for an Easter egg hunt. In fact, Liz, her roommate, used to do the honors for her back in college. Liz sent Suzanne a text this year to make sure that everyone’s Easter was being taken care of.

Easter-at-churchdyed-eggsWhatever you celebrate, I hope you had a sunny weekend.

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Shakespeare for Refugee Children

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

A Syrian actor who visited a refugee camp, felt compassion for the children, and returned to help them put on a play decided to start at the top. Only the best playwright would do.

From the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, NY Times reporter Ben Hubbard describes the scene: “On a rocky patch of earth in this sprawling city of tents and prefab trailers, the king, dressed in dirty jeans and a homemade cape, raised his wooden scepter and announced his intention to divide his kingdom. His elder daughters, wearing paper crowns and plastic jewelry, showered him with false praise, while the youngest spoke truthfully and lost her inheritance.

“So began a recent adaptation here of King Lear. For the 100 children in the cast, it was their first brush with Shakespeare, although they were already deeply acquainted with tragedy. All were refugees who had fled the civil war in Syria. …

“ ‘The show is to bring back laughter, joy and humanity,’ said its director, Nawar Bulbul, a 40-year-old Syrian actor known at home for his role in ‘Bab al-Hara,’ an enormously popular historical drama that was broadcast throughout the Arab world.

“Last year, he and his French wife moved to Jordan, where friends invited him to help distribute aid in Zaatari. …

“Children he met in the camp made him promise to return, and he did — with a plan to show the world that the least fortunate Syrian refugees could produce the loftiest theater. …

“The mere fact that the play was performed was enough for the few hundred spectators. Families living in nearby tents brought their children, hoisting them on their shoulders so they could see. …

“The crowd burst into applause, and a number of the leading girls broke into tears. Mr. Bulbul said they were overwhelmed because it was the first time anyone had clapped for them.”

More here, at the NY Times, where you can also see a slide show and watch a video about the refugee-camp theater initiative.

Photo: Warrick Page for The New York Times

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