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Posts Tagged ‘temple university’

Turning Smog to Diamonds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 2, 2016| 4 Comments »

My husband is from Philadelphia and remembers hearing popular lines from a motivational speech in that city, about finding “acres of diamonds” in your own backyard.

“Today, Russell Conwell is best remembered as the founder and first president of Temple University,” says Vimeo. “But in his lifetime, Conwell had a very different claim to fame — that of popular orator.” (A Vimeo video “explores the history of Conwell’s most famous speech, ‘Acres of Diamonds,’ an inspirational message he delivered, by his own estimate, 6,100 times.”)

“Acres of Diamonds” was the first thing I thought of when Kai posted on Facebook about an initiative to turn China’s out-of-control air pollution into diamonds.

Rachel Hallett at the World Economic Forum wrote, “Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde has come up with an innovative plan to tackle Beijing’s air pollution problem – and in doing so, turn a health hazard into a thing of beauty.

“After a pilot in Rotterdam, the Smog Free Project is coming to China. The project consists of two parts. First, a 7m tall tower sucks up polluted air, and cleans it at a nano-level. Second, the carbon from smog particles is turned into diamonds. Yes, diamonds. …

“Roosegaarde explained … ‘We’ve created environments that none of us want,’ he said. ‘Where children have to stay inside, and where the air around us is a health hazard.’

“The towers suck up polluted air, and clean it, releasing it back into parks and playgrounds. And according to Roosegaarde, these areas are 70-75% cleaner than the rest of the city. …

“The other aspect of the project will see the captured smog transformed into diamonds. 32% of Beijing’s smog is carbon, which under 30 minutes of pressure can be turned into diamonds.”

Can such wonders be? Read more here.

Photo: AP
Smog in Beijing will be turned into diamonds.

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Pop-Up Playground Where Most Needed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Azzurra Cox at the Atlantic‘s City Lab website wrote recently about design students and a nonprofit theater group that “created a ‘park-in-a-cart’ to serve the fast-growing city of El Alto, Bolivia.

“One bright July afternoon in El Alto, Bolivia, a playground paraded across a busy intersection.

“In the country’s second-largest city—and, at approximately 13,500 feet, the highest major urban settlement in the world—desfiles are a frequent occurrence, even a way of life. …

“But this parade was different. Dodging a stream of minibuses, a few individuals wearing carnivalesque costumes tugged two colorful metal carts—one resembling an astroturf bee, the other an elephant—to the center of a nearby plaza.

“Working in the harsh sunlight, they set about disassembling the carts. The shell of the bee became a series of green mounds, while the elephant trunk revealed itself as a slide.

“In a matter of minutes a playground was born, and the sounds of children playing rippled across the plaza. …

“In this dense city, driven by commerce at all scales, streets, sidewalks, and communal spaces are often transformed into informal markets, where vendors and minibuses compete for real estate. While this competition brings vitality, it requires novel methods of occupying urban space for play.

“The pop-up playground aims to do just that. Over three summers, the International Design Clinic (IDC), a ‘guerrilla design’ collective, has collaborated with Teatro Trono to design and build a pair of mutable, movable playspaces …

“Toward the end of that July afternoon, the park collapsed its way back into the carts. As one mother convinced her five-year-old to take her last turn down the slide, she asked one of the designers where she could find the playground next. Megan Hoffman, who studied anthropology at Temple University, recalls a grandmother who offered the group a sleeve of crackers to express her gratitude.

“ ‘That day,’ Hoffman says, ‘our pop-up playground was a space of joy.’ ”

More at City Lab.

Photo: Megan Hoffman
The mobile park on parade in El Alto this summer.

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Jazz at the Apollo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 25, 2011|

We went with Suzanne and Erik to the Apollo in Harlem for an awesome jazz concert.

When I tell you about the talent that performed, you will never believe that the tickets were only $10. But sponsors put the show in the reach of pretty much everyone. Savion Glover (of Tap Dance Kid fame) may have been the best-known name, but the Temple University band and others were also great, not to mention two young women in their teens who blew the audience away. One was saxophonist Grace Kelly from Brookline, Mass.,  who already has a big reputation both here and abroad.

The other was Nikki Yanofsky, “a 17-year-old musical prodigy from Montreal. At the age of 13, Nikki became the youngest artist ever signed to Verve Records, when she recorded Airmail Special for the compilation We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady Of Song. In 2008, Nikki’s debut release, Ella…Of Thee I Swing, a live tribute to Nikki’s hero, Ella Fitzgerald, earned two Juno nominations. Nikki’s musical education was further enhanced by collaborations with such jazz luminaries as The Count Basie Orchestra, Oliver Jones, and The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.” Her scat singing was amazing, and her ballads showed control and maturity beyond her age.

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