Sightings: More

Health Alerts and Concerns

Weight Reduction Products

The FDA has issued a further alert regarding over-the-counter weight reduction products. The additional products identified now comes to a total of 72 products with ingredients that are new undeclared drug ingredients. FDA Uncovers Additional Tainted Weight Loss Products

Alcohol Consumption

The conflicting studies about alcohol consumption continue to add to the confusion over this question. One does question, especially if you're female, as to whether one or two alcoholic drinks daily are permitted for continuing good health. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has created a new government website called "Rethinking Drinking."

Enter your average consumption as an anonymous site user, and compare your intake with the general population and those considered problem drinkers. There is a definition available of what constitutes a drink according to the percent of alcohol by volume (alc/vol) and that varies by beverage.

The limits offered for men at this site are: No more than four standard-size drinks daily or 14 weekly. Women: No more than three standard-size drinks daily, or seven weekly.

There are sections for strategies for cutting down and support for quitting (including building your drink refusal skills) as well as a list of dozens of medication that might react adversely in combination with alcohol.

Your Aching Back, Sleep Issues and When you Fall

Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare (a nonprofit New England health plan) is hosting voice-overs and animation to conduct 'conversations' about common but worrying problems. They're considered a coaching program termed Information Therapy Conversations.

Interactive Conversations
Trouble Sleeping? Experiencing back pain? Negative thoughts getting your down? We want to help. Listen to our interactive, online conversations. You will be asked a few questions. Your answers, confidential and private, will guide you on your own path to wellness.

Sleeping Well The clock reads 3:00 am and you're wide awake. What can you do to break this cycle? Try our conversation to help you get back to sleep tonight.

Healthy Thinking
Are your thoughts weighing you down with stress and anxiety? Our interactive conversation will guide you on replacing your discouraging thoughts with more accurate, positive ones.

Low Back Pain
Looking for help with your low back pain? Learn how time, medicine and activity can help you treat your pain and maybe prevent it next time.

Victory for the White House Plot

Those of us who were alive during World War II may have reaped the benefits from a family Victory Garden.

My father leased a vacant residential lot near our home in Garden City South, L.I., New York for the purpose of seeding and planting an extensive vegetable garden. It was of a considerable size and corn, tomatoes, green peppers, herbs and other plantings flourished there, alongside flowers designed to, in some cases, discourage pests.

After a full day of work in New York City, my parents commuted back home on the Long Island Railroad to the aptly-named Garden City station, and my father, Ernest, found some time, what with long summertime daylight hours, to tend the garden. The weekend entailed hours of maintenance, weeding, picking and, for my mother and grandmother, canning the crop abundance. During winter months, we would sample the wonderful produce the Victory Garden had produced.

Now, Michelle Obama has put in place a similar garden at the White House to encourage younger generations to replicate the kind of experience I had as a child. The layout reveals the kind of produce planning we designed, but perhaps with less emphasis on the kind of vegetables we found on our shelves in winter such as green beans, carrots and cucumber pickles. But some of my personal favorites are there, such as shallots and most particularly, fennel. The dark, leafy greens are in evidence as well as rhubarb and today my husband makes a mean rhubarb and strawberry compote.

We do understand that President Obama does not care for beets. However, the Victory Seeds company might carry an acceptable variety.

A portion of the White House produce will be given to Miriam's Kitchen, which serves the homeless in Washington, DC. 

The Smithsonian has hosted an exhibit, Within These Walls, of a Victory Garden: Using a design from a 1943 pamphlet, the Horticulture Services Division of the Smithsonian Institution is re-creating a World War II victory garden on the terrace outside the Museum's cafeteria. The 130-foot long garden contains over fifty varieties of vegetables and flowers that change with the seasons. The vegetables are heirloom species, older varieties that were available to gardeners during the 1940s.

The Smithsonian site provides a reading list on the subject of Victory Gardens:
David, Tucker. Kitchen Gardening in America: A History. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993.

Putnam, Jean-Marie, and Lloyd C. Cosperf. Gardens for Victory. Orlando: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942.

Watson, Benjamin. Taylor's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966.

We found In Joseph Lash's book, Eleanor and Franklin, (published by Norton, 1971) a quote from Shelia Hibben, a culinary historian ventured a theory of history about White House Menus shortly after Roosevelt's first inauguration: "The more democratic our Presidents have been, the more attention they paid to their meals."

 

Happiness, A Commodity?

Recently, a conference was held in San Francisco on the subject of happiness: Happiness and Its Causes. We did not attend (falling portfolio pricing prohibits anything other than house-bound participations) but thought we could pass along some linking.

First, we are amazed in the number of people dedicated to the 'happiness business.' But, we sound too skeptical already.

In an entry, Jeremy Adam Smith from the Center for Greater Good described one lecture/meeting in his post, Happiness and Its Ambiguities:

"Quite a few of the panelists actually argued that happiness should not be the ultimate goal of existence. Philosopher and psychologist Owen Flanagan (another editorial board member) paraphrased Kant: Happiness is one thing, being good is another. And indeed, he said, preaching contentment for its own sake only serves the interests of the powerful."

"Spiegel went on to add that in bad times, the goal should be to convert corrosive emotions (that reinforce helplessness) into emotional states that provoke action or reflection: convert anxiety into fear, depression into sadness, illness into meaning. We can achieve happiness when we are actively trying to make the world a better place."

We did note that the Center's magazine, Greater Good Magazine, had published an article entitled, America's Trust Fall: Trust is essential to strong relationships and a healthy society, but it has been declining for decades, report Pamela Paxton and Jeremy Adam smith. How can America learn to trust again?

One paragraph must strike us all in its relevancy today: Trust helps the economy. Economists Armin Falk and Michael Kosfeld have shown that, when performing tasks for others, an atmosphere of distrust reduces individuals’ motivation and accomplishments, trust in each other has declined much more steadily and consistently than our trust in institutions and probably increases the cost of doing business. Other research by Stephen Knack and Philip Keefer has found that countries whose citizens trust each other experience stronger economic growth.

Another popular approach mentioned on an Oprah show is the three month course, Awakening Joy, that can taken online (for a suggested donation of $250, though it is noted that no one is turned away for lack of funds) or attended in person at Berkeley, CA.

Course principles are enumerated:

1. Developing and Increasing Wholesome States: The course uses practices that lead the mind toward states of happiness and well-being. Once we understand what healthy activities help support these wholesome states, we can intentionally invite and cultivate them.

2. Focusing on the Gladness That Arises with Wholesome States: While engaged in a healthy activity we experience an actual positive uplift of energy. The teachings speak of the value of experiencing “gladness connected with the wholesome” and of delight that “gladdens the heart.” By being very present for this gladness we increase its impact on us. This gladness is what I’m calling a joyful heart.

3. Inclining the Mind towards Wholesome States: “Whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon will be the inclination of their mind,” taught the Buddha. As we incline the mind toward wholesome states of well-being, such as gratitude or kindness, they are more available to us. Current brain research confirms this. As we practice certain states of mind we actually change our brain structure, deepening the groove towards depression or happiness.

And further into the magazine, there's an interview, Can I Trust You?; A conversation between world-renowned psychologist Paul Ekman and his daughter Eve, with Jason Marsh:

"I have been studying lying professionally for more than 20 years, but it was not easy to deal with it as a parent," he writes in his 1989 book, Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness, which includes chapters by his wife, Mary Ann Mason, a professor and former dean at the University of California, Berkeley, and his son Tom, Eve's older brother. Indeed, as that book makes clear, it is one thing to be able to catch a kid in a lie; it's something very different to be able to raise a trustworthy child.

So how does an expert on lying, deception, and truthfulness try to foster trust and trustworthiness? Paul and Eve, who is now 28, recently sat down with Greater Good's editor in chief, Jason Marsh, to discuss the benefits of trusting your kids (even when it's nerve-wracking to do so), how to encourage trustworthy behavior, and what it takes to build trust between parents and children.

Read the rest of the conversation:

It sounds like every kid's worst nightmare: the parent who always knows whether you're telling the truth. But when it came down to it, Paul Ekman's scientific expertise on lying was of limited usefulness to Paul Ekman the parent.

Even the National Bureau of Economic Research is addressing the subject of ... happiness:

"Despite robust economic growth over the past three decades, Americans do not report being any happier today than they were thirty years ago. Yet in Happiness Inequality in the United States (NBER Working Paper No. 14220), Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers find that happiness is more evenly distributed among Americans — in other words, the happiness gap has narrowed. Examining data for 1972 to 2006, Stevenson and Wolfers find that two-thirds of the black-white happiness gap has disappeared, and the male-female gap has vanished entirely — and may have even reversed. However, paralleling changes in the income distribution, differences in happiness by education have widened substantially."

But a new report in the British Medical Journal, Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study, has been widely quoted:

Results Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25% (95% confidence interval 1% to 57%). Similar effects are seen in coresident spouses (8%, 0.2% to 16%), siblings who live within a mile (14%, 1% to 28%), and next door neighbours (34%, 7% to 70%). Effects are not seen between coworkers. The effect decays with time and with geographical separation.

Conclusions People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

Go Up, Gardeners

We have family members who are running out of gardening space; what better way to create additional areas for the green than to go up? Recently, we passed on a DIY site we found as well as one aptly named GardensUp!

When we were in Paris last year for our most recent vacation, we saw the work of Patrick Blanc at the Cartier Foundation. A Japanese site, PingMag, contains pictures of Blanc at work and at play:

"Besides covering shop interiors like Girbaud’s in Paris with moss and ferns he designed for companies like Samsung or the Hypo Vereinsbank. Next year he will enrich the surface of a skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur and the Doha Office Tower in Qatar with greener beauty. No wonder le Docteur was honoured with several prices like the ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ or recently the gold medal of the Académie d’Architecture."

From Treehugger: "Shimizu Corp., a major Japanese construction company, and Minoru Industrial Co., an agricultural machinery manufacturer, co-developed and are marketing "Parabienta," a light-weight and low-cost wall greening system. The Parabienta wall greening system combines panel-type planting units to form a wall. Different combinations of panel unit patterns and the selection of various plants allow flexibility in wall design."

Hydroponics and vertical gardening produces a site with unusual pictures of commercial vertical growing systems. And, of course, the whole system of producing flowers or vegetables in this manner is not new:

"Using trellises, nets, strings, cages, or poles to support growing plants constitutes vertical gardening. This technique is especially suited, but not limited, to small garden spaces. Vining and sprawling plants, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, and pole beans are obvious candidates for this type of gardening. Some plants entwine themselves onto the support, while others may need to be tied. Remember that a vertical planting will cast a shadow. Beware of shading sun-loving crops, but plant shade-tolerant crops near the trellises to take advantage of the shade. Plants grown vertically occupy much less space on the ground, and though the yield per plant may be (but is not always) low, the yield per square foot of garden space is high. Because vertically growing plants are more exposed than non-staked plants, they dry out quickly and may need to be watered frequently. This fast drying is an advantage to those plants susceptible to fungus diseases. Several examples of vertical gardening structures are shown below."

A site without translation but with many ideas for carrying forth this approach, visit the Les Albums Photo de Hippolite. From another site, I was reminded about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

 

Keeping Up With Beijing

Since the time difference with Beijing does not allow for much live TV viewing during the Olympics, streaming video from the US host network, NBC, is an alternative for those who'd like the satisfaction of in-the-moment competition and finishes. Trying to avoid the results revealed by other news sources gets old, if you'll forgive the term.

NBC's own site will provide live video from the events as well bas background stories on the competitors, their history and sport.

For those lucky travelers who plan to attend the games, Architecture Week provides a view of the newly completed Beijing Terminal, the world's largest. Architectural Record has a tour of new structures, both sports-oriented and not. Another stop on the AW Beijing tour is it's Art in Beijing article, highlighting the 798 art district. AR also directs a where-to-go and what-to-see feature in Beijing.

Frontline: Young and Restless in China, a series done by PBS' premier investigative unit can be viewed from the PBS site.

The Librarians' Internet Index provides links to the games including Budget Travels' own:

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games ... An Insider's Guide
"Beijing has never welcomed travelers as eagerly as it is welcoming them now [for the 2008 Olympics]. The Chinese capital is determined to make a fantastic impression during its moment in the global spotlight. The following Web exclusive articles offer a fresh look at Beijing — plus some practical travel tips." Topics include China tourist visa policies, staying healthy in China, Chinese etiquette, arranging transportation to and within China, and more. From Budget Travel magazine.
URL: http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-srv/beijing2008/beijing_olympics/

InfoPlease brings us a variety of sites, including one that contains fun facts. And then, of course, there are the 'official' sites:

Beijing Olympic Games
http://en.beijing2008.cn/
Beijing 2008 (International Committee)
http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/beijing/

International Olympic Committee
http://www.olympic.org
Olympic Committees
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/noc/index_uk.asp
US Olympic Committee
http://www.usoc.org/
2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games
http://www.vancouver2010.com/en

Other dedicated media sites:

CBC Olympics
USA Today Olympic News
Washington Post
The New York Times
ESPN
CNN

Another Librarians Index listing:

Biblioteca Arcana: Dozens of articles on such arcane subjects as the Pythagorean Pentacle, the Saturnalia Ritual, the Ars Haruspicina, and Hellenic neopaganism. Browsable. From a computer science professor.

 

Women of Note: Gertrude Bell

A biography of the Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner in Baghdad and her own account, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, online

"In 1904, at thirty-six, Gertrude Bell determined to follow up her interests in a newly concentrated way. She gave up mountain climbing and returned to serious study, working under Salomon Reinach, a French archaeologist. Recognizing that 'there is still much exploration to be done in Syria and on the edge of the desert,' Bell planned to study 'those vestiges of antiquity that catch the eye of a casual observer.' But besides archaeology she was interested in social contacts, especially of the two groups of Arab people she had earlier found most fascinating: the Druze and the Bedouin. This journey became the basis for her best travel book, Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907) — crammed with conversations and photographs, something between travel guide and ethnography with pauses for somewhat woolly political recommendations (the root of various difficulties within the Ottoman empire 'lies in the disappearance of English influence at Constantinople'). Some serious archaeological work resulted from this trip too, appearing in Reinach's journal, the Revue Archeologique."

Syria: The Desert and the Sown began to shape her reputation as a knowledgeable and well-connected source for information useful to the British Empire. Mostly, though, that journey and book taught her, or confirmed for her, that her life lay in the East, not among the sown regions, but in the desert. The desert for her represented a place of liberty: "I cut myself loose from civilization." Or, as she put it more formally at the beginning of The Desert and the Sown:

"To those bred under an elaborate social order few such moments of exhilaration can come as that which stands at the threshold of wild travel. The gates of the enclosed garden are thrown open, the chain at the entrance of the sanctuary is lowered, with a wary glance to right and lift you step forth, and, behold! the immeasurable world. The world of adventure and of enterprise, dark with hurrying storms, glittering in raw sunlight, an unanswered question and an unanswerable doubt hidden in the fold of every hill. Into it you must go alone, separated from the troops of friends that walk the rose alleys, stripped of the purple and fine linen that impede the fighting arm, roofless, defenceless, without possessions. . . . So you leave the sheltered close, and, like the man in the fairy story, you feel the bands break that were riveted about your heart, as you enter the path that stretches across the rounded shoulder of the earth."

Read the rest of the The Hudson Review article, The Arabian nights of Gertrude Bell, by Alexandra Mullen at the FindArticles site.

More to the point, The Desert and the Sown is now a Google book (with many illustrations and a map) and can be read online.

The following is an excerpt from a new book about Bell:

"It is 22 March 1921, the last day of the Cairo Conference and the final opportunity for the British to determine the postwar future of the Middle East. Like any tourists, the delegation make the routine tour of the pyramids and have themselves photographed on camels in front of the Sphinx. Standing beneath its half-effaced head, two of the most famous Englishmen of the twentieth century confront the camera in some disarray: Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, who has just, to the amusement of all, fallen off his camel, and T. E. Lawrence, tightly constrained in the pin-striped suit and trilby of a senior civil servant. Between them, at her ease, rides Gertrude Bell, the sole delegate possessing knowledge indispensable to the Conference. Her face, in so far as it can be seen beneath the brim of her rose-decorated straw hat, is transfigured with happiness. Her dream of an independent Arab nation is about to come true, her choice of a king endorsed: her Iraq is about to become a country. Just before leaving the Semiramis Hotel that morning, Churchill has cabled to London the vital message 'Sharif’s son Faisal offers hope of best and cheapest solution.' "

"By what evolution did a female descendant of Cumbrian sheep farmers become, in her time, the most influential figure in the Middle East? She was as English as English can be, which is to say that she was bred in the wuthering heights of Yorkshire. These northern farmers have acquired a very particular character ever since the eleventh century, when, alone among the English, they refused to submit to William the Conqueror. Physically and mentally tough, they are given to few words, unvarnished and bluntly delivered."

Read the rest of the excerpt from the newly released book, Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell at the Farrar, Straus and Giroux site

Photo albums can be viewed at the Gertrude Bell Project website, Robinson Library, University of Newcastle

NORCS: Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities and Other Things

As defined by the US Department of Health and Human Services a NORC "is a community with a large proportion of older people residing within a defined geographic area. It is distinguished from other areas that also have high concentrations of older residents, such as assisted living communities or continuing care retirement communities, in that it is 'naturally occurring,' that is, it was not designed specifically as a community for older people but rather evolved in such a way that a large proportion of its residents are older."

The findings of the HHS department in conjunction with Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy and the Urban Institute, in part, revealed that:

Grantees [over 41 communities in the US] view the NORC as encompassing the housing complexes and independent housing units where older residents reside, as well as the various resources available in the community, such as community centers, houses of worship, health care providers, shopping centers, and public transportation. While the resources in the community are an attraction for residents, respondents in all sites identified physical layouts that present problems for older residents either within a resident's home (e.g., bathroom facilities that can only be accessed by stairs) or within the community (e.g., neighborhoods without sidewalks). Grantee staff at all sites noted that most older residents have lived in the community for decades, staying largely because of personal ties as well as connections with community institutions. Migration was an important factor in some communities, either in-migration, such as the influx of older Russian immigrants to Baltimore and Pittsburgh in the late 1980s that contributed to a change in the culture of the community, or out-migration from these same communities that has led to a growing though not dominant aged-left-behind population.

A program we viewed hosted by KQED, FAQ: Living Old has a page dedicated (though not in large enough type) to useful sources and websites, as well as tapes of previous presentations. The program focused recently on NORCS, in particular the one named Beacon Hill Village in Boston:

"Beacon Hill Village helps persons age 50 and older who live on Beacon Hill and in its adjacent neighborhoods enjoy safer, healthier and more independent lives in their own homes–well connected to a familiar and attentive community. Faced with the prospect of leaving the neighborhood they love in order to obtain the services of a retirement community, a group of long-time Beacon Hill residents decided to create a better alternative – Beacon Hill Village is designed to make remaining at home a safe, comfortable and cost-effective solution."

"By partnering with proven providers of services, Beacon Hill Village is able to offer its members preferred access to social and cultural activities, exercise opportunities and household and home maintenance services, as well as medical care and assisted living at home. As a nonprofit, membership organization, it can provide these programs and services more cost-effectively than most conventional retirement communities."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has also funded investigations into the NORC concept. NORC is "a term coined by Professor Michael Hunt of the School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was the first to recognize, research, and publish on the NORC aging-in-place phenomenon." 

We were curious about all other things 'naturally occurring.' There are good things and not-so-good things. Some we found concerned the radioactive, toxins, asbestos and those related factors. On the other hand, we found that the Organic Consumers Association presents naturally occurring standards. And there's an overview of Centering in Naturally Occurring Discourse and a naturally occurring growth factor that stimulates regeneration of injured nerve fibers in the central nervous system. We didn't know what to make about naturally occurring graphite cones but we're sure that MIT does. We were intrigued by the naturally occurring fractals in plants, rivers, galaxies, clouds, weather, population patterns, stocks, video feedback and crystal growth.

Finally, we came to the Naturally Occurring Standards Group and noticed their slogan was: Because Life is Naturally Occurring.

We like that.

All Things Polar

We've been interested in all things polar and arctic since childhood, and the inauguration of the International Polar Year March 1 fills us with delight.

Begin with galleries of photos, videos and other images from the National Science Foundation's website on the IPY. One video source is the North Pole Environmental Observatory and another is the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE). The Damocles Project is specifically concerned with the potential for a significantly reduced sea ice cover, and the impacts this might have on the environment and on human activities, both regionally and globally.

Many nations are involved in the year's activities. We found a Finnish blog begun by three researchers from the Finnish Arctic Centre chronicling activities and impressions:

It was often very entertaining hearing about what bizarre weather was reportedly overcome; what gourmet cuisine was being scoffed; what mysterious malfunctions had occurred to the skidoos (the driver being never at fault as an irate mechanic was called to talk the field group through some sketchy repairs to one of his pride and joys); or what strange requests were to be added to the “shopping list” to be delivered whenever an aircraft was in the vicinity or a supply depot laid for the group.

The ExploreNorth Blog is a collection of blogs from around the North, from Alaska to Iceland. And yes, there is a blog, Quilting Above the Arctic Circle.

Other nations participating are:
Swedish IPY website
IPY Finland
IPY Norway
Danish Polar Center IPY website
German IPY Commission
US Committee IPY
Canadian IPY website
Arctic Ocean Sciences Board
APEX - Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extremes
Plates & Gates – Plate Tectonics and Polar Gateways in Earth History

A description of a book for teenagers, Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White:

It's fifty degrees below zero.

It's 2083 and five teens are contestants on a reality TV show, Antarctic Survivor, which is set up to re-create a doomed 1912 attempt to reach the South Pole. But this reality TV is not just an act. The five must struggle to survive the real conditions that killed the original team of experienced explorers and scientists — or die trying.

In the Antarctic, the wind and snow can blow so hard, you can't see your hand in front of your face. Death lurks in every frozen crevasse. What chance does the Antarctic Survivor team have?

The National Science Foundation also has a list of artists and writers who have been past participants in the NSF program providing "opportunities for scholars in the humanities (painting, photography, writing, history, and other liberal arts) to work in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. These visitors will be able to make observations at US Antarctic Program stations and research camps and in wilderness areas. The purpose is to enable serious writings and the arts that increase understanding of the Antarctic and help document America's antarctic heritage."

Elizabeth Arthur is an author who wrote Antarctic Navigation and Sarah Andrews is a forensic geologist who has reports on her Antarctic journey. Both are interesting sites to explore.

An Antarctic Mystery or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields by Jules Verne is available online. From the first chapter, "The Kerguelen Islands":

"No more appropriate scene for the wonderful and terrible adventures which I am about to relate could be imagined than the Desolation Islands, so called, in 1779, by Captain Cook. I lived there for several weeks, and I can affirm, on the evidence of my own eyes and my own experience, that the famous English explorer and navigator was happily inspired when he gave the islands that significant name.

"I may be believed when I assert that Desolation Islands [Patrick O'Brian titled his fifth Aubrey/Maturin novel with the same name] is the only suitable name for this group of three hundred isles or islets in the midst of the vast expanse of ocean, which is constantly disturbed by austral storms.

"Nevertheless, the group is inhabited, and the number of Europeans and Americans who formed the nucleus of the Kerguelen population at the date of the 2nd of August, 1839, had been augmented for two months past by a unit in my person. Just then I was waiting for an opportunity of leaving the place, having completed the geological and mineralogical studies which had brought me to the group in general and to Christmas Harbour in particular."

Typography and Women

I read a statement in The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst , that typography exists to honor content, and couldn't agree more. Having worked for a magazine and married to a printing salesman, typography is an appealing, thought little recognized, art. And, many of the pioneers in typography have been women.

Unseen hands, Women Printers, Binders and Book Designers is an exhibit held at Princeton University Library:

"Since the mid-twentieth century, women have moved into every job in commercial printing, from running the paper (Katherine Graham) to running the press. Examples of the fine printing of Bertha Goudy and Jane Grabhorn also grace this exhibition, along with the work of such notable designers and illustrators as Elizabeth Shippen Green, Clare Leighton, and Elizabeth Friedlander. This exhibition represents only one contribution toward a full history of the roles of women in printing and the arts of the book. Much remains to be discovered, documented, and written, though it is likely that many women — particularly those outside the mainstream —- will remain forever unknown and 'unseen.' Each woman featured in this exhibition stands in for thousands of her sisters, known and unknown, who have loved books and printing, and gotten on with the work."

"Agnes Peterson established the Women's Co-Operative Printing Union in San Francisco in 1868. Augusta Lewis Troup, journalist and typesetter for Susan B. Anthony's newspaper The Revolution, was elected corresponding secretary of the International Typographical Union in 1870, the first woman to hold any national union office. Women were notably successful at bookbinding, both 'on the line' — producing factory bindings — and in the creation of splendid examples of hand binding, particularly during the Arts and Crafts Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This same period also witnessed a renewed interest in fine printing, and women such as Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Yeats founded private presses that produced handsome limited editions of the work of contemporary authors and artists. Perhaps most pointedly, she adds: "Each woman featured in this exhibition stands in for thousands of her sisters, known and unknown, who have loved books and printing, and gotten on with the work." One of the earliest examples of women working in typography from this exhibit is that of The Nuns of San Jacopo di Ripoli, Italian, active 1476-1484"

"Incunabula," from the Latin for "swaddling clothes," are the earliest books printed in the West, specifically those dated before 1501. The first documented instance of women actually employed in printing comes from a manuscript kept at the Convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence. Perhaps because their printing works was supervised by two male friars, the women's contributions have been little noted until recently. In 1999 the convent's Diario, a type of account book and daily log, was published with a commentary and transcription by Melissa Conway.

The prejudice against women in most trades continued as outlined in a description of a group aptly called The Typophiles:

"But, actually, practicing typographers included women in growing numbers. Among them were skilled compositors; designers of adult trade, children’s, and text books; art directors; production managers; and not a few editors. Yet, except for the formidable Beatrice Warde, they couldn’t come to lunch with the boys. Well — they did get invited to the Christmas meetings! The exclusion ended at long last in 1970."

"But it should be recalled here that even in the early days, typographic women asserted their presence, displaying what now may seem amazing grace and forbearance. Taking Bertha Goudy, typesetter and designer, as inspiration, they formed their own small group, calling it The Distaff Side. Its major adventure, emulating their brothers in type, was a bound collection of inserts, Goudy Gaudeamus (literally, “we rejoice”) with Frederic W. Goudy on his 70th birthday. Making up the committee in charge were Emily Connor, Fanny Duschnes, and two who would later be active Typophiles, Evelyn Harter Glick and Edna Beilenson."

Ellen Lupton's article on women graphic designers makes the transition from the women of the arts and crafts movement to those involved in the digital age:

"Promoting moral uplift through meaningful labor, the Arts and Crafts movement was relatively open to women, who belonged to many of the Arts and Crafts societies founded around the turn of the century. As historian Ellen Mazur Thomson has argued, membership in clubs aided designers' professional advancement, and apart from the Arts and Crafts organizations, most denied access to women until much later in the century."

"In Boston, a strong publishing industry provided fertile ground for experiments with typography, calligraphy, illumination, illustration, and bookbinding. The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, founded in 1897, celebrated the book arts in its exhibitions and included numerous women among its active members, such as Sarah Wyman Whitman, Julia DeWolf Addison, Mary Crease Sears, and Amy Sacker. Several of these designers ran small schools and workshops and taught bookbinding, illustration, and other skills in fields that might provide suitable employment for young women."

"While the workshop of Mary Crease Sears produced hand-tooled bindings using luxurious materials, other Boston designers worked in the commercial arena. The prominent society woman Sarah Wyman Whitman designed numerous machine-stamped bindings for Houghton Mifflin, as well as interiors and stained glass windows and screens for private clients. Amy Sacker’s 1902 design for the commercial binding of The Kindred of the Wild achieves a sense of depth and drama with a minimal number of colors and simple, linear illustrations."

At the end of the past century, many recognized the contribution of Zusana Licko who redesigned a typeface named after "Sarah Eaves, the woman who became John Baskerville's wife. As Baskerville was setting up his printing and type business, Mrs. Eaves moved in with him as a live-in housekeeper, eventually becoming his wife after the death of her first husband, Mr. Eaves. Like the widows of Caslon, Bodoni, and the daughters of Fournier, Sarah similarly completed the printing of the unfinished volumes that John Baskerville left upon his death." Zuzana Licko is the co-founder of Emigre, together with her husband Rudy VanderLans. Licko was born in 1961 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and emigrated to the US in 1968; she graduated with a degree in graphic communications from University of California Berkeley in 1984. Sadly, their magazine has now ended its run but some back issues can be ordered.

Alternative Spring Break

We've all been aware of the yearly college-age phenomenon of spring break: images of partying, bikini clad coeds and inevitably, a police presence. TV programs have assigned locations, the classic wet-T-shirt contests ensue and parents worry. The AMA conducted a poll of female students and behavior during traditional spring break destinations:

A majority (59 percent) of survey respondents support restricting the content of spring break flyers and ads on campus, and 61 percent support prohibiting drinking or alcohol specials as part of any tour package. Approximately 71 percent support increased regulation of the tour agencies, and 81 percent support the idea of requiring colleges to offer alternative spring breaks that do not include alcohol.

"Women are fed up with the marketing tactics and images from the alcohol industry and spring break tour operators," said Dr. J. Edward Hill. "Public health advocates should also be fed up since aggressive spring break marketing endangers the health and safety of college students."

Alternative spring break trips, that often emphasize community service, have been increasingly successful across the country. The University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are just a few schools that offer service trips to desirable destinations without alcohol as the focal point.

Alternative breaks have developed, including a national approach called Break Away. A list of the colleges and universities that subscribe to this program include American University, Washington, DC, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA; Indiana University, Purdue University Indianapolis; Indianapolis, IN; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Texas A&M University, College Station, TX; University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO; University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; University of Maine, Orono, ME; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, The list goes on.

The following are alternative break programs offered by Stanford University:

• "Cripples" and "Crazies"? Beyond the Myths of Disability – Bay Area
  
• An Identity in Crisis: The Pilipino-American in California
  
• Art & Activism in San Francisco
  
• Asian American Issues: From Identity to Action – Bay Area & Los Angeles
  
• Dynamics of Disaster Relief: Rebuilding in the Wake of Natural Catastrophe – Louisiana (two trips offered)
  
• Exploring the Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in San Francisco
  
• Gender and Power – Bay Area
  
• Navajo Nation – Arizona
  
• Piecing the Puzzle: Exploring the Social Construction of Black Identity - Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA
  
• Real World Hawai’i
  
• Scenic Monterey – Monterey, CA
  
• Sex and the City: Exploring Sexuality and Gender-Based Rights in San Francisco

James Madison University is presenting a post-Katrina hurricane relief alternative break in Waveland, MS. Community Service-Learning is organizing a Hurricane Katrina relief trip to the Gulfregion to aid in the recovery efforts there.  The trip will be coordinated by Community Collaborations International. 

Sonoma State University is planning a spring break trip to participating with Habitat for Humanity to build homes in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Arizona State University held their alternative break with the National Aubdubon Society, working at the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, a living laboratory that formulates, tests, and demonstrates methods to restore and safeguard the bioregion in Elgin, Arizona. They provided manpower to assist in this important research. Some of the work students performed included building and fixing gates, creating wetland habitats, and preserving the oral history of the region. 

Additional findings from the AMA poll are revealing and disturbing:

• A majority (74 percent) of respondents said women use drinking as an excuse for outrageous behavior.*
  
• More than half of women (57 percent) agree being promiscuous is a way to fit in.
  
• An overwhelming majority (83 percent) of women had friends who drank the majority of the nights while on spring break.
  
• More than half (59 percent) know friends who were sexually active with more than one partner.
  
• Nearly three out of five women know friends who had unprotected sex during spring break.
  
• One in five respondents regretted the sexual activity they engaged in during spring break, and 12 percent felt forced or pressured into sex.
  
• An overwhelming majority (84 percent) of respondents thought images of college girls partying during spring break may contribute to an increase in females' reckless behavior.
  
• An even higher percentage (86 percent) agreed these images may contribute to dangerous behaviors by males toward women.
  
• Almost all (92 percent) said it was easy to get alcohol while on spring break.
  
• Two out of five women agreed access to free or cheap alcohol or a drinking age under age 21 were important factors in their decision to go on a spring break trip.

Children's Theater

A Northwestern University site makes note that although the US movement for children's theater only began in the 1900s, it is a fairly recent entry in the drama field as compared with China and Russia: " In countries such as these, only the best actors and actresses would be allowed to act for children."

" Each season, [the Children's Theater of Minneapolis] CTC presents six exceptional productions on its mainstage. These productions are drawn from classic tales, the most celebrated work from around the world, and challenging, original material created at CTC. "

" In the 27-year history of the Regional Theatre Tony Award, CTC is the first theatre for young people to receive this honor. In addition, the CTC production of A Year with Frog and Toad, which completed a run at the Cort Theater on Broadway in June 2003, was nominated for three Tony Awards."

Some of their ambitious productions have been The Hobbit and A Year With Frog and Toad ( which earned three Tony Award nominations for Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical and Best Musical).

The John F. Kennedy's Imagination Celebration include upcoming performances Citizen 13559: The Journal of Ben Uchida, Walking the Winds: Arabian Tales, and
Hello Maru-Chan: A World of Paper.

In Ben Uchida, "a young Japanese American boy's world changes overnight when his family is sent to a California internment camp during World War II. Through a journal given to him by his father, Ben Uchida reflects on their troubled life in the barracks, his stern new schoolteacher, and the sometimes harsh reactions of other Americans." Walking the Winds "weaves together a colorful spectrum of Arabian legends and lore, by turns heroic, comic, and dramatic." Maru-Chan "begins to explore the earth, sea, and sky around her, she meets many fantastic creatures and objects along the way."

The Winnie the Pooh performances staged by the Dallas Children's Theater use antique marionettes inspired by the original illustrations in Milne's classic. The Dallas theatrical presentation of the Frances Burnett book, The Secret Garden, includes self-confidence building activities in the companion study guide.

The Northwest Children Theater and School of Portland, OR presented last year a high seas adventure, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, which was the west coast premiere of the young adult novel adaptation: When 13-year-old schoolgirl Charlotte Doyle sets sail for America, she has no idea her journey will be fraught with tragedy and danger ... Ultimately she must choose between retreating to her life as a young woman of society or donning the uniform of a sailor, forever changing her destiny."

The Lexington, KY Children's Theater has as one of its 2005-2006 selections Tuck Everlasting: To live forever — isn’t that everyone’s ideal? For the Tuck family, eternal life is a reality.  Doomed to — or blessed with — eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as possible. When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing that it might seem.

Señora Tortuga is another Lexington production: Pedro and his family live on the Mexican border in a barn that has been transformed into a humble home.  One day, a woman comes to their house and spins tales of wonder. To teach Pedro a lesson about giving, Pedro’s mother invites the magical storyteller to dinner.  Señora Tortuga’s stories of Mexican legends bring Pedro heroic dreams of fighting dragons and monsters that convey important lessons about family, love, and strength of spirit.

Amazing Grace tells the story of "a young girl who loves to pretend.  Most of all, she loves to act out her Nana's stories of history and folklore.  So when the school announces auditions for Peter Pan, Grace wants the lead!  But can Grace's imagination help her when the kids tell her she can't be Peter Pan because she's not a boy and Peter is not black?  With the support of her mother and Nana, Grace learns that if you can believe it, you can be it."

Another Kentucky theater, Stage One in Louisville, is presenting And Then They Came for Me, Remembering the World of Ann Frank.

By the way, ASSITEJ/USA is the United States Center for the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People.

A history of the theater page takes the reader through the centuries. Other pages that include participation games and a skit.

Photography Exhibits

An obituary of an 93 year-old Argentinean photographer, Annmarie Heinrich, caught our eye.

Here's part of the obit at the site and magazine, ZoneZero.com:

At her small studio she trapped as no one else the golden Porteña decade, while transforming the craft of photography in art. Her life and work are an undying testimonial to the Argentinean migration.

October 1st, at age 93 Annmarie Heinrich died, symbol of the Argentinean photography of the XX century and a core figure in the cultural history of the country.

Her expertise in portrait, captured the big stars of Argentinean movies, at the top of the golden decade of the 40's, for the covers of magazines such as El Hogar, Sintonía, Alta Sociedad and Radiolandia.

She also portrayed with her unique glance, several cultural figures like Eva Duarte, Jorge Luis Bourges, the singer Marlene Dietrich and Pablo Neruda.

The tribute ends with her words: "Beauty is learned by watching. All my life I worked by looking to a body, a light, a reflection." Alex Hax concludes the obituary by writing: Heinrich didn't die, then, she stopped looking.

The African American Vernacular Photography exhibit at The International Center for Photography decries the fact that there is "little public documentation about the private lives of African Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when their social transactions took place for the most part outside of public view and often away from the camera's lens."

The collection is taken from the Daniel Cowin Collection of African American History, "a trove of more than two thousand postcards, stereographs, cartes-de-visite, tintypes, albumen prints, and gelatin silver prints. Taken together, these ephemeral images provide an important window into African American cultural life from 1860 to about 1930."

NPR has available an interview with photographer Helen Levitt entitled The Indelible Eye:

Levitt created some of the most indelible photographs of New York City street scenes in the 1930s and 40s. It was a time when indoor temptations didn't yet lure people off the street. Levitt would walk all over the city, shooting, for the most part, in the streets of Spanish Harlem.

"It was a good neighborhood for taking pictures in those days, because that was before television," she told Block. "There was a lot happening. And the older people would be sitting out on the stoops because of the heat. This was... in the late '30s, so those neighborhoods were very active."

Michael Hoppen's gallery in London is featuring Lynn Davis’ photographs of icebergs. They "are visual eulogies to the magic and sublime beauty of nature."

Davis first visited Disko Bay, Greenland in 1986 and the majestic beauty of the icebergs led to a turning point in her work, previously focused on architecture and the human form. With this initial series of landscapes she defined a style characterised by the combination of the minimal with the monumental, alongside a meticulous toning of the prints with gold and selenium ... She returned to Disko Bay after the recent completion of a series of work on modernist urban architecture and she was equipped with a heightened sense of abstraction ... Taken between midnight and the early hours of the morning her photographs of these transient natural monuments show a blending of the spiritual and architectural unique to Davis.

Willy Ronis' images on the Hacklebury Gallery website from the decades of the 30s, 40s and 50s are mainly of Paris and evoke a time and location familiar to many of us who lived through those troubled times, albeit from afar. Elliott Irwitt's photographs are much more familiar to Americans and the subjects, for the most part, are more personal. The cult of the celebrity is on display.

A project by famed photographer Sebastião Salgado appearing in The Guardian is based on the goal of "seeking out places that are still as pristine as they were in primeval times, places that provide hope."

Salgado presents his journey, in part:

"The world is in peril, both nature and humanity. Yet this cry of alarm is heard so often that it is now largely ignored. International conferences are routinely organized to debate global warming, sustainable development, water resources, destruction of forests, endemic poverty, the AIDS epidemic, housing needs and other facets of the global crisis. But the daily struggle for survival of the majority of humanity and the appetite for comfort and profit of the minority mean that, in practice, these fundamental problems are tackled only superficially. We have lost touch with the essence of life on earth."

The Cooper-Hewitt's Fashion in Colors & The Kyoto Costume Institute Stylishly Collaborate

Designer profiles at the Fashion in Colors exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt include those of Cristobal Balenciaga, who introduced a style familiar to those of us who remember the '50s: the sack, described as a loose chemise. Others featured here are Kawakubo, Dolce & Gabbana, Fortuny, Galliano, Viktor & Rolf, Vionnet and Piguet as well as others.

But it is the text regarding colors that is both instructive and well illustrated by the examples. Do take care to click on the illustrations at the bottom of the page to take you to additional pages:

The illustration for a robe à la française of silk taffeta cites yellow once thought of as the color of heretics in early Christian culture and the source for the dye as weld.

A section picturing a corset, petticoat and bustle in a blood red color makes note that "dyestuffs obtained from animals were thought to contain unhygienic impurities, and expensive mineral dyes were rarely used for underwear" but after the 1850s synthetic dyes were used in undergarments, allowing such startling colors as red, purple and black to appear.

A dress chosen to highlight the color mauve is thought to be from France, ca 1974: Before the discovery of aniline dyes, purple colors were so expensive to product that they were traditionally reserved for the extremely wealthy. With the advent of inexpensive artificial dyes, all-over mauve fabric become accessible to the general public."

Think of that the next time you put on the royal color, purple.

As many as 60 of these costumes were supplied by the Kyoto Costume Institute which is the " only institution in Japan that specializes in the study of Western fashion."

The Institute's collection online begins with the 1700s and continues through the 1940s.

There's a beautiful Elsa Schiaparelli black velvet evening cape from 1938 embroidered with gold thread, sequins and beads and a 1922 Zimmerman dress from Paris of silk crepe with rose print; panels of black crepe de Chine and black rayon fringe at the hem.

A Paul Poiret woman’s party costume dates from 1913: " Black silk gauze hooped over-dress with gold floral embroidery; belt with gold embroidery; gold fringe; gold lamé silk harem pants with ball ornament at side-hems."

An 1892 Charles Frederick Worth
reception dress is composed of off-white silk satin with woven chrysanthemum pattern with velvet gigot sleeves.

And an c. 1770 English dress of white Spitalfields silk floral damask with double-flounced pagoda sleeves and a compère front would be worthy of a wearing by a Jane Austen heroine.

The Kyoto Institute is a marvelous discovery and one not to be missed on a trip to that city known more famously for its temples.

The Smaller Museum and Their Collections

The online availability of small and less celebrated museums of one of the Web's strengths. Here are some recent exhibits at just a few:

One such example is the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of Washington University in St. Louis:

At the inauguration of Washington University's "new gallery of modern art" in 1946, curator Horst W. Janson unveiled his purchases and proudly announced the "finest collection of contemporary art assembled on any American campus." During the previous year, Janson had acquired 38 artworks that embodied his conception of modern art, introducing twentieth-century artistic trends to the central United States. Janson believed that his "duty" as an art educator was to fulfill his role of "intellectual leadership" in assembling an art collection that would serve the educational needs of both the academic and regional communities. Despite the fact that the University Chancellor, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Arthur Holly Compton, confessed in his opening remarks that he could not understand modern art, Janson believed that his acquisitions "represent a new and important step in the growth of the Washington University Art Collection.

Serendipitously, there's a Women in the Collection exhibit at present with examples from the work of Harriet Hosmer, Jane Stuart, Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Hepworth, Kathë Kollwitz and Françoise Gilot. Don't overlook the womens artists' book page.

The Crocker Arts Museum's digital exhibit of Kathy Gillmeister's Meissen porcelain while although quite inclusive of 16th century pieces, unfortunately doesn't allow for increases in the image size. Fortunately that's not the case with the American Art, including those of Moses Soyer's Ballerina, Du Bois' Girl Reading a Book and Tarbell's In the Station Waiting Room. One of the Central European drawings is entitled The Improvement of Morals, 1787 by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki. Perhaps the most interesting title is A False Friend is Worse than an Open Enemy, which might be an allegory for a German political situation in the mid 16th century.

The Neustadt Museum of Tiffany is a part of the Queens Museum of Art in Corona Park, NY reveals more than just the art of glass working; it focuses on a particular collector, Dr. Egon Neustadt. Neustadt was "an orthodontist and real-estate entrepreneur born in Austria in 1898, [who] began collecting Tiffany lamps with his wife, Hildegard, in 1935, when they purchased their first desk lamp in New York. Dr. Neustadt noted that when he brought his first lamp home and placed it on his desk, 'Our friends didn't like it.' Undaunted, Neustadt's interest in the leaded-glass shades and lamp bases became all-consuming, making him one of the earliest serious enthusiasts of Tiffany lamps, assembling an encyclopedic collection. Dr. Neustadt's passion eventually led him to acquire some 500 crates of raw Tiffany glass in the 1960s, remnants of the Corona glass factory left over after Tiffany Studios went bankrupt."

The Morris Museum of Art in downtown Augusta, GA is currently hosting the series utopia: Cheryl Goldsleger created mixed-media paintings based on the work of women architects, assuming the viewpoint of the female architects she encountered in her research. Her interest in the history of women in architecture led her to think about the social dimensions of architecture and less about particular individuals. Many of the women whose works have inspired Goldsleger imagined a better world where people might inhabit idealized spaces but never saw their plans realized. By focusing on women's attitudes toward spatial organization, she explored the unique qualities that women have brought to design through their understanding, knowledge, and sensitivity. This exhibition represents visions of how society could have developed, but didn't.

A the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, The Nature of the Beast; Animals in Japanese Painting and Prints holds the viewer's attention. In Japan, the use of animals in art to mock human behavior dates at least as far back as the thirteenth century. A somewhat bizarre creature is featured in painting by Hokusai and depicted in an essay:

Hokusai also depicted another water-dweller, in this case the mythological, freshwater kappa. The kappa is a river imp that preys on travelers. They usually have fish scales, turtle shells, a face like a bird or a monkey, and a dish on the top of their heads that holds a liquid that is the source of their superhuman strength. An unlucky traveler who encounters a kappa should bow to greet it, and the liquid will drain from its head when it bows in return, rendering it weak and harmless.

The Newark, NJ museum is presenting an exhibit, The Triumph of Silver in America, with examples that trace "America’s love affair with sterling silver. Silver began as a rare luxury for the elite in colonial times and became a hugely popular commodity in the Victorian era, attracting millions of American consumers. By 1900, silver had triumphed in America; production was at its peak, and sterling silver objects could be found in the majority of American households. By 2000, however, the American silver industry had collapsed, and its principal factories were gone, a victim of changing American lifestyles. Silversmithing lives on today in America as an art form, with silver objects collected by people who value craftsmanship and design. In this way, silver has come full circle, and is now as luxurious and rare as it was in the colonial period."

 

Horticulture as Therapy

One thesis we came across by Annalisa Vapaa was her search for the characteristics of a healing garden by, well, just visiting:

In my attempt to visit “healing gardens” I visited landscape arboretums, peace gardens, wildflower gardens, rose gardens, botanical gardens, duPont gardens such as Longwood in PA and the Gibraltar gardens in Wilmington, DE. Also private residential gardens, a Minnesota sculpture garden, and memorial gardens such as the Living AIDS Memorial Garden on the East End of Charleston, WV were visited. Although these gardens were not labeled as “healing gardens,” each garden in it’s own way provided healing attributes.

The American horticultural Society presents some tips and techniques

Some techniques include:

• Constructing wide, gently graded wheelchair accessible entrances and paths.
• Utilizing raised beds and containers
• Adapting tools to turn a disability into an ability
• Creating sensory-stimulation environments with plants selected for fragrance texture and color
• Utilizing accessible greenhouses that bring the garden indoors for year-round enjoyment

Gardens and Children: The Nature of Nurturing is an article that outlines the benefits of this kind of therapy for children in particular. "One hortitherapy program with a CASA connection is the Bee Kind Garden in Spokane, Washington. The garden is designed to help children from violent homes heal from past abuse, providing a supervised, therapeutic, outdoor learning experience for troubled children. A professional therapist is available to help children who need to process trauma and crisis resulting from past abuse. But the heart of the program is the trained volunteers who work in the garden with the children, nurturing plants and animals such as the resident turtles in the ponds located throughout the lush landscape."

An article by Mark Epstein provides a short history for the restorative gardens movement in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce as well as a set of garden guidelines.

Evidence of restorative gardens can first be found during the Middle Ages in Europe. Medieval hospices integral to monasteries were the first restorative gardens to appear in the West. Patient's cells bordered an arcaded courtyard that offered sunlight, a lawn, seasonal plants and a place to sit or walk. In addition, the monasteries were traditionally quiet places suffused with mysticism, adding to comfort and hope for patients.

As the care of the infirm changed from monastic institutions to civic and ecclesiastical institutions, landscaped spaces attached to hospitals became simply products of traditional architectural practice. The Ospedale Maggiore in Milan (1458), was built in a cruciform plan with windows too high to view the formal gardens outside.

Then emergence of scientific medicine and of Romanticism in the 17th and 18th centuries brought attention to sanitation and fresh air as well as a new appreciation for the effects of nature upon the body and soul. The pavilion hospital, with outdoor spaces between pavilion wards, became the predominant form throughout the 19th century.

Dunfee Conservatory in Amherst, Massachusetts was used as a setting for Horticultural Intervention as a Stress Management Technique among University of Massachusetts/Amherst Students:  

Methodology

The tour required students to actively participate in a series of events that lasted from 30 to 45 minutes in entirety. The sequence was consistent for each tour and the routine did not vary. Group size was generally restricted to between 8 to 12 students in any one session to ensure student involvement and supervision. Multiple sessions were required to service over 200 student participants. The tour consisted of a commentary that blended garden history and plant lore with assorted visual and sensual activity. The students were guided throughout and participated in each activity. These activities included aromatherapy, which utilized fragrances at specific intervals throughout the tour. Students were given adequate time to smell blossoms and aromatic foliage. Tactile stimulation utilized an assortment of plant material noted for vegetation pleasing to the touch. Visual contemplation of flowering displays, sculpture, and bonsai specimens also engaged student attention. The tour commentary blended these activities together with dialogue of relevant details on horticulture, botanic knowledge, and garden history. The intention was to capture the interest and attention of the students as a way of actively insuring their participation. Immediately at the conclusion of the intervention, students were required to respond to a mood assessment survey.

Here are a couple of events that the American Horticultural Therapy Association points to:

Gardens in Healthcare Symposium
October 27, 2005 in Portland, OR
Join healthcare administrators, design professionals, clinicians, fundraisers, garden supporters, horticulturists, activity professionals and volunteers for a day long symposium to learn strategies for developing gardens in healthcare. Read more on the events page.

Therapeutic Garden Design and Veterans Affairs: Preparing for Future Needs
October 11, 2005 in Miami, FL
The Mobile Workshop for Therapeutic Garden Design Professional Interest Group presents "Therapeutic Garden Design and Veterans Affairs: Preparing for Future Needs." On October 11, 2005, as part of the annual professional meeting, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will participate in this one-day mobile workshop in Miami, Florida, hosted by the local Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital. Read more on the events page.

And yes, we did find a page devoted to arthritis and its considerations while gardening. If you'd just like a list of books about gardens and gardening, there's a Stories from the Garden Book List from the Elizabeth C. Miller Library at the University of Washington. Here are a few of the fictional works cited:

Arkell, Reginald. Old Herbaceous. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951. Delightful descriptions and characterizations enliven this tale of an old-time gardener in an English countryside garden and his love of plants. Considered an English gardening classic, it is now available in paperback.

Bellow, Saul. More Die of Heartbreak. New York: William Morrow, 1987. The life of an eminent botanist, revered by his fellow specialists for his work on Arctic lichens, changes dramatically when he acquires an avaricious young wife.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden, new ed. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1987. In this classic of children's literature originally published in 1911, 10-year-old Mary comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors, where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

Goudge, Elizabeth. The White Witch. New York: Coward McCann, 1958. Historical novel about an herbalist during the period of the English civil war.

James, Henry. The Aspern Papers . 1908. Young opportunist uses the neglected Venetian garden of two shy, mysterious American ladies as a pretext to get himself taken in as a lodger and gardener, in order to obtain access to some secret papers which the ladies jealously guard.

Kosinski, Jerzy. Being There . New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970. Chance the Gardener philosophically compares life to a garden, with amusing results.

Pearson, Diane. The Marigold Field. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969. From the turn of the century to the end of WW I, this novel follows the fortunes of two British families who work on the local squire's estate, but begin to set their sights beyond gardening and the rural life.

Read, Miss. (Pseudonym for Dora Jesse Saint) For forty years readers have visited the villages of Fairacres and Thrush Greene through Miss Read's many books. Gardens, teas, country fetes -- it's easy to get caught up in the lives of the villagers.
Thrush Green . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959.
Affairs at Thrush Green . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
Summer at Fair Acre . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

Sherman, D.R. Old Mali and the Boy . Boston: Little, Brown, 1964. A timeless story of a boy taught by a wise and humble gardener about life and courage. Written by a young Rhodesian.

Shields, Carol. Larry's Party . New York: Viking Penquin, 1997. Larry is an underachieving florist from Winnipeg, on his honeymoon with a newly pregnant wife, when he is lost and then found in the ancient and classic hedge maze at Hampton Court. He falls in love with the mystery of it, the greenness of the shrubs, the names of the plants. The intricate possibilities of maze design change Larry's life as he first surrounds his little house with a maze, then moves out into the world to become a designer of mazes for the rich and famous.

Swann, E.L. Night Gardening . New York: Hyperion, 1999. The healing power of gardens and their ability to inspire romance and to absorb tragedy, is the theme of this small book. Maggie is an Irish-American widow recovering from a stroke when she spies through a gap in her garden wall the extensive renovations taking place in the garden next door, overseen by landscape architect Tristan Mallory. Their eyes meet, plant names are exchanged, holes are dug, and romance blossoms.

We're onto the next list, which focuses on mysteries.

Literary Maps and Micronations

Man walks with his feet on the earth and his head in the air, and the history of what has taken place on the earth is but half the history of man ...

We noticed that The New York Times was planning to create a Literary Map of Manhattan and wondered how many other literary maps there were on the Web already.

Lots.

The Congressional Library has an actual map of the voyage in Moby Dick the Pequod took.

ImaginedProjects; The Nice Place That Doesn't Exist by Antonio contains a Map of the Island of Utopia, the book from 1516 by Sir Thomas More:

Utopia is a sickle-shaped island, well protected against invasion, but it was not always an island. A long isthmus once connected it to the mainland, an isthmus ordered severed by Utopus, who conquered the isle and civilized its inhabitants, and for whom the island is named. The 54 cities are all equal, ringed by walls, just as all the houses are equal, inhabited by turns by the large extended families that represent the fundamental social cells of Utopia. On the island everyone work six hours each day, and goods are distributed to all the family heads according to their needs, without the need for money (gold is held in such low esteem that it is used to make chamber-pots and refuse bins). Free time is devoted prevalently to intellectual activities (conferences, music, educational games), because ''the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor (...) to allow all the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.'' [2] There is no poverty in Utopia, but there is violence. There are slaves, who handle the heaviest jobs, and the Utopians, although only in extreme cases, do not hesitate to make war.

The Library of Congress' collection of literary maps includes The John Steinbeck Map of America. The map features popular images from Steinbeck's novels such as Tortilla Flat (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and The Pearl (1947). The outline of the map shows the route of Travels with Charley (1962), and the central portion consists of detailed street maps of the California towns of Salinas and Monterey, where Steinbeck lived and set some of his works. Numbers on the maps are keyed to lists of events in Steinbeck's novels. A portrait of the author appears in the upper right corner. Research and design of the map were done by Molly Maguire, who produced a series of literary maps in the 1980s.

Owen Wister's map of The Virginian "highlights scenes from the classic novel, such as the card game with Trampas during which the Virginian delivers his famous line "When you call me that, smile." An inset map shows the states where the events in the novel took place, with Wyoming, the primary locale, highlighted."

Language of the Land is part of the Literary Heritage of the States project of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Throughout the exhibition, these colorful and varied maps reflect the contributions of authors to specific states or regions and locate their imagined people and places. Through these maps, authors' words, images, and characters, Language of the Land presents a tapestry of the impressions that endure in our collective imagination of the American land and its culture.

Another kind of imaginary landscape can be termed a micronation. One site, Micronations.net, links to various articles and pages that concentrate on these nation-state simulations.

Cabinet Magazine is featuring a section called Foundlands on this phenomenon:

"Call them micro-nations, model countries, ephemeral states, or new country projects, the world is surprisingly full of entities that display all the trappings of established independent states, yet garner none of the respect. The Republic of Counani, Furstentum Castellania, Palmyra, the Hutt River Province, and the Empire of Randania may sound fantastical, but they are a far cry from authorial inventions, like C.S. Lewis’s Narnia or Swift’s Laputa. For while uncertain territories like the Realm of Redonda might not be locatable in your atlas, they do claim a very genuine existence in reality, maintaining geographical boundaries, flaunting governmental structures, and displaying the ultimate necessity for any new nation: flags. Admittedly they may be little more than loose threads on the patchwork of nations, but these micro-nations offer their founders a much sought-after prize — sovereignty."

"Such idiosyncratic nation-building can trace its roots back to the early nineteenth century, when even the mightiest empire had yet to consolidate its grip on the more far-flung regions of the world. The swampland of the Mosquito Coast was just such an untouched area, and it was here that the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor decided to found his new kingdom — the Territory of Poyais. The Scot might never have been heard from again had he chosen to live out his life in his small and inhospitable nation, but MacGregor was keen to transmute sovereignty into sovereigns."

Read an excerpt from the book, The Land That Never Was by David Sinclair on the Territory of Poyais:

"This earthly paradise was called the Territory of Poyais, and it was described as 'a free and independent state situated on the mountainous side of the Bay of Honduras; three or four days' sail from Jamaica; thirty hours from the British Settlement of Balize [sic] in Yucatan; and about eight days from New Orleans, in the United States of America'. The Territory lay between the Spanish South American provinces of Honduras and Nicaragua, from which it was separated by a chain of almost inaccessible mountains. Its natural defences had preserved it from Spanish domination and, in fact, the country had been sporadically settled by British people since its discovery by West Indies pirates in the late seventeenth century. For political reasons, Poyais had never been officially claimed as a British colony, in spite of close links between its native rulers and the British West Indies, and several approaches by Poyaisian kings to the government in London with offers to attach their country to the Empire. As a result, the immense natural resources of Poyais — its extremely rich and fertile soil, its luxuriant forests, its gold and its abundant marine life — had been left largely undisturbed."

The Andrew Kreps Gallery in NYC is hosting a show entitled We Could Have Invited Everyone, an exhibition about micro-nations, model nations and concept nation states.

Man walks with his feet on the earth and his head in the air, and the history of what has taken place on the earth is but half the history of man ...

From Thomas More's Utopia

Exhibitions of Ornament, Furniture, Art-to-Wear, Arts and Crafts

San Francisco's Legion of Honor is presenting a six-month exhibition of Artwear: Fashion and Anti-fashion, that one of a kind clothing: "The exhibition of approximately 120 objects charts the genre’s development from embroidered and crocheted hippie style, to grand, one-of-a-kind woven, knitted, and dyed garments that are equally at home on the body and on the wall, to the more fashion-oriented works of the 1990s."

In addition, the exhibition sets artwear in context as one in a long line of art and dress reform movements by including costumes from its antecedents, such as the Wiener Werkstätte, Mariano Fortuny, and Liberty of London. Related trends in contemporary fashion will be examined as well, with the inclusion of works by designers such as Kansai Yamamoto and Issey Miyake.

London's Victoria and Albert Museum is presenting a comprehensive display of International Arts and Crafts both drawn from their own collection and that of other venues. It encompasses pieces from Europe, the United States, Japan and, of course, Britain:

It was a movement born of ideals. It grew out of a concern for the effects of industrialisation: on design, on traditional skills and on the lives of ordinary people. In response, it established a new set of principles for living and working. It advocated the reform of art at every level and across a broad social spectrum, and it turned the home into a work of art.

The movement took its name from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1887, but it encompassed a very wide range of like-minded societies, workshops and manufacturers. Other countries adapted Arts and Crafts philosophies according to their own needs. While the work may be visually very different, it is united by the ideals that lie behind it.

This was a movement unlike any that had gone before. Its pioneering spirit of reform, and the value it placed on the quality of materials and design, as well as life, shaped the world we live in today.

It's possible to explore the exhibit by browsing, using a virtual tour or an object search. There are highlights, an invitation to view other arts and crafts around the museum and a selection of the best examples of Arts and Crafts buildings in the Greater London area. Another center for Arts and Crafts is the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. Don't overlook the Design a Tile section nor the e-cards.

The V & A also carries a knitting section as part of their Jewelry, Accessories and Fashion pages, including a free downloadable pattern from Rowan. Do read the interviews with knitting designers such as Patricia Roberts and Sasha Kagan.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has three current exhibitions of interest:

Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands: "Created to honor the archipelago’s gods and ancestors, adorn the bodies of its people, and ornament the objects they used, art in the Marquesas encompassed virtually every aspect of sacred and secular life. From everyday items to the sacred images of gods and ancestors, Marquesan artists richly embellished nearly every type of object they used."

John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker (1733–1809) profiles "one of colonial America’s preeminent craftsmen and one of the few 18th-century cabinetmakers to sign and date his work. Some 45 pieces of Townsend's best work, more than half of them signed, form the core of this first retrospective and illustrate this cabinetmaker’s unsurpassed refinement of design and precision of craftsmanship. On view are his early works in the Baroque style — tables and chairs with cabriole legs, case pieces with block-and-shell carved fronts — as well as later examples, with straight legs and incised or inlaid decoration, in the Neoclassical or Federal style."

Cameo Appearances consists of more than 100 examples drawn from the Met's own collection of hardstone carving, the core of which was amassed by financier Milton Weill who died in 1934. One cameo set includes a tiara, brooch and necklace portrays the bust of Apollo, Cupid and Psyche kissing and Cupid with a bow.

A Sleeping Shepherdess in the Moonlight is from the second half of 16th century.
Women of Note and a New York Public Library Exhibit

From the Introduction:

In the Britain of the 1780s, life was more rigidly stratified than it is today: people generally knew where they belonged, and law and custom kept them there. Women labored under special disabilities. Politically disenfranchised, they also could not join the professions and were barred from many jobs. Married women had no rights to property or even to their own children. Centuries of common sense claimed that women were less than men in every way except their ability to bear children. In the wake of the French Revolution, however, political equality and something like a sexual revolution for women seemed possible, and thanks in part to Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the legal and social restrictions under which women lived were briefly but hotly contested during the period we now call the Romantic era (1789–1837).

By the time Victoria inherited the throne in 1837, other, gentler changes had come about. Genteel women no longer laughed at bawdy jokes or made them as they had in the eighteenth century. Noblewomen no longer ruled the fashionable world by establishing private casinos, and their political campaigning was largely confined to the drawing room. By 1800, many women had begun to understand motherhood as a sacred calling. This transformation in women's lives also produced poetry, novels, plays, and paintings; new ways of understanding feminine sexuality; and new feminine roles in British culture. Not least, it produced — and was produced by — some fascinating women: wives, mothers, and lovers, as well as actresses, botanists, poets, novelists, travelers, sculptors, astronomers, courtesans, and utopians.

Many were helped by being born into wealthy families, or by having parents who encouraged them to accomplishments beyond what was expected for girls. A few gained autonomy by declining to marry. Almost all were born with talents, energies, or temperaments that made them — loudly or quietly, gracefully or awkwardly — fighters. Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era tells the stories of some of these women, putting them in the context of their extraordinary revolutionary moment.

The page entitled Prologue: First of a New Genus — Mary Wollstonecraft notes that the height of her "fame came with her 1792 masterpiece, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (which can be read in its entirety at Bartleby.com), in which she demanded that women take responsibility for themselves, and reform the world by reforming their own lives."

Fables for the Female Sex, another page from the online exhibit, states that what was new in Romantic-era Britain were gradual changes in the meanings of virtue, sexuality, and motherhood.

The Modern Venus: Politicians, Gamblers, Lovers, and Other Improper Ladies page informs that "If the Romantic era offered new ways to be good, it also offered many ways and places for women to have fun and to get into trouble; these included gambling, politics, theater, pleasure parks, operas, masquerades, and — not least — adultery. The article is accompanied by a NYPL print, A Modern Venus, or a Lady of the Present Fashion which surprisingly, indicates that women of that time, too, wanted exactly the same attributes that many of the cosmetic enhancement set of today want — except, perhaps, for that bustle rear.

The section also makes note that the era "saw the beginning of modern lesbian culture, exemplified in the now-obsolete social relationship known as romantic friendship, held up as a model of female virtue and devotion — as long as there was no hint of sex."

There is an excerpt that one can read at the Regency Library's of Harriet Wilson's Memoirs which should afford a sense of the memoirist's writings of this time:

As the hour drew near for fulfilling my engagement in the Regent’s Park, I recollect that I did not, in the least, know the person of Lord G.L. Gower, and felt much puzzled how I should contrive to distinguish him from any handsome man who might happen to be enjoying the fresh air towards Primrose Hill. However, trusting to chance or sympathy, or that instinct, by which, according to Falstaff, the lion knows the true prince, I dressed myself with unusual care, and contrived to be punctual. I observed a tall, rather handsome, and gentlemanly man, looking about him; but as I felt at once that he was not, in any respect, cut out for the honour of filling up the void in my heart, I prayed the God of Love to send me a better subject.

Stronger Passion of the Mind explains that "women took up authorship for the sake of fame and artistic glory, but for practical reasons too: writing required no formal education beyond a knowledge of the genres, and no tools beyond paper and ink."

Rational Dames and Intrepid Travelers introduces us to an etching of Margaret Bryan and her daughters, a woman who we found only brief mentions and citations (but not any of her works online) through search engines. The following was provided by a site that compiled a list of famed women astronomers:

Ran a boarding school and seminary for girls at Blackheath, England. In August, 1797, she published her lecture notes, in book form, as A Compendious System of Astronomy. The popularity of her first work encouraged her to publish Lectures on Natural Philosophy in 1806, and later that same year An Astronomical and Geographical Class Book for Schools.

We like that etching.

NOVA's Best

We admit that we're a PBS television junkie (along with that radio equivalent, NPR) but we weren't a science-oriented student in our past. Fortunately, NOVA helps to fill in and expand on the many gaps in our education. We've shamelessly copied their own list of well-done websites created for their programs.

One upcoming repeat program, The Elegant Universe, based on the book by Brian Greene, has created a slide show of setups necessary to creating a television program. That companion website, too, refers to an Einstein quote Greene uses in his book:

In Einstein's day, the strong and weak forces had not yet been discovered, but he found the existence of even two distinct forces - gravity and electromagnetism - deeply troubling. Einstein did not accept that nature is founded on such an extravagant design. This launched his 30-year voyage in search of the so-called unified field theory that he hoped would show that these two forces are really manifestations of one grand underlying principle. This quixotic quest isolated Einstein from the mainstream of physics, which, understandably, was far more excited about delving into the newly emerging framework of quantum mechanics. He wrote to a friend in the early 1940s, "I have become a lonely old chap who is mainly known because he doesn't wear socks and who is exhibited as a curiosity on special occasions."

	Lincoln's Secret Weapon Through stunning 360-degree animations, stroll through the USS Monitor and see the famous Civil War ironclad as it looked before it went down off North Carolina a century and a half ago.
	Fire Wars Prepare yourself for this summer's wildfire season in North America, which threatens to be one of the most destructive ever. On this site, fight a virtual wildfire, see how a wildland firefighter gears up, view satellite maps of a world on fire, discover why some plants can't live without fire, and more.
	Island of the Sharks While diving at Cocos Island in the eastern Pacific, you can see up to 400 hammerhead sharks at once. Here, view stunning 360° undersea panoramas of sharks, read personal accounts of shark attacks, consult a who's who of shark species, and much more.
	Cancer Warrior Watch the full NOVA program chronicling the extraordinary odyssey of Dr. Judah Folkman, who has spent over 30 years searching for ways to curb cancer by cutting off blood flow to tumors. Also on this Web site, find out how clinical trials are designed, see how cancer grows, watch video of actual cancer growth, explore an extensive Help/Resources section, and more.
	Dying to be Thin Life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are on the rise. Here you can watch the entire NOVA program in QuickTime or RealPlayer, read expert advice and the personal experiences of sufferers, access valuable resources, find out what your body's nutritional needs are, and more.
	Einstein Revealed Review the key turning points in Einstein's life, find out why he is considered a genius among geniuses, become a "time traveler," learn how the theory of general relativity gave birth to cosmology, and explore the nature of light.
	Mysteries of the Nile Explore the Pyramids, temples, and other monumental architecture of ancient Egypt through riveting 360° photography and field dispatches from noted Egyptologists. Then, see what it takes to try to raise a giant granite obelisk using only the tools and techniques of the ancients.
	Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance Journey into ice-choked Antarctic waters and onto the shores of rugged Elephant and South Georgia islands as you follow in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton, whose legendary 1914-1916 Endurance expedition is one of the greatest survival stories of all time.
	Submarines, Secrets, and Spies Lead yourself on a tour of an active nuclear submarine through 360° views, hear about life underwater from former submarine sailors, find out why the U.S. Navy has been loaning out its subs, and test your sonic knowledge.
	To the Moon Join the Apollo astronauts on the moon's surface through stunning 360° photography, find out why scientists believe the moon used to be part of the Earth, give your brain a workout with some lunar puzzlers, and hear from the space pioneers, including the last man to walk on the moon.

Opera and Learning

Although we've had a stunted childhood in that we weren't exposed to opera, many sites on the web can help to repair that (or our) deficiency:The Mines of Sulphur is an opera performed at Glimmerglass in upstate New York. What makes the opera site so fascinating is a production diary. As they did in 2003 with the opera Orlando, you're let in on the costumes and characters, the music and story as well as the process of getting the opera onstage. Each week, for five weeks, the team working on Mines were chartered during rehearsals, when talking to the cast and exploring the artistic team. The Arizona Opera site includes synopses, composer bios and what is termed an Opera Aid Kit, i.e., opera terminology such as: Andante/Andantino. [ahn-dahn-tay; ahn-dahn-tee-noh] (Italian) From the verb andare, "to walk." Implies a moderate, "walking" tempo. Similarly, andantino (the diminutive of andante) could imply a tempo either faster or slower than andante. Another term we could have perhaps deciphered was: Pants Role. A young male character who is sung by a woman, usually a mezzo-soprano, meant to imitate the sound of a boy whose voice has not yet changed. Fortunately, the Arizona site also includes FAQs including an etiquette category all-important question, What should I wear to the opera? "The opera is the one special place where you can really dress up and go glamorous. Cocktail dress is usually the norm for evening performances, while Sunday matinees generally see more casual sport jackets and dresses. Your opera experience is what you make of it — you'll fit in with Arizona Opera's patrons in everything from Birkenstocks to Blahniks!" There's a weekly trivia game, a newsletter and even animated presentations.The Los Angeles Opera has a series for educators that "teaches about opera from an interdisciplinary approach. Learn about opera and the context in which it was created." Opera is approached as history, art, language and social documentary. A part of the program is termed Opera 101 Teacher Training. The Opera Company of Philadelphia, too, has a behind the scenes aspect to their site in this case covering Faust but other productions such as The PearL Fishers, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein and Susannah.The Chicago Lyric Opera will be highlighting and celebrating the Jubilarians, 25 artists and individuals instrumental in the Lyric Opera's history. The 18 clips on this section were excerpted from interviews conducted by Bruce Duffie over the course of his 25-year career as an announcer/producer for Chicago radio station WNIB-FM. The New York City Opera, too, has a learning center with a host of articles, one provocatively titled, Lattice and Veil by Kathleen Watt: "Lifting the veil on the fanciful East depicted by Mozart in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Kathleen Watt separates fantasy from the reality of life in the harem." Another title at the shop section of the site is a book with the humorous title of The Great Poohcini.

Museum of Costume, Bath

We revisited the Bath Museum of Costume and found the site updated and redesigned. Although we haven't been able to glimpse online the 12 gowns that Queen Elizabeth is showing at Kensington Palace, we were able to see a number of informative and fashion-oriented pages at this site, including a couple of HRH's dresses. Currently on display is the Jane Austen: Film and Fashion exhibit with costumes from recent productions, such as the BBCs Pride and Prejudice (starring Colin Firth) and the Oscar winning film version of Sense and Sensibility that featured Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant. For the older viewer (and younger) there's the Costume Drama Game: Select a year, dress the model in the correct clothing for that year, choose an item from each section, underwear, garment, shoes, bag and hat by using the mouse, click and drag the item on to the model. When the model is fully dressed press the try button. The computer will tell you how you have done. Keep going until you have every item correct for all four years.

There's a Dress of the Year quiz to be tried also but bone up first at the page beginning with dress before 1800 and rare undergarments, surviving from the late 16th and early 17th century periods. The Dress of the Year page begins with images from 1963 and continues until the selection for 2002. The Modern Collection includes such delicious items as Lady Cuzon's 1903 evening dress, and a 1900 corset, thankfully no longer a staple of a lady's dress code. Fashions in the Fifties may bring a smile to those of us who were growing up at the time, a fashion moment that our daughters and granddaughters have celebrated in recent years.An elaborately embroidered gauntlet cuff from the 1600s is a striking example of the amount of hand work to complete an item for the upper classes:

"This is a particularly fine example, with a cuff of cream satin embroidered with pink silk cord, gold thread, seed pearls and gilt spangles in a design of carnations, roses and cornflowers. These surmount a popular motif of this time known as ‘the pelican in her piety’; it refers to the religious legend of the selfless pelican who plucked her breast to feed her young with her blood." "The wrist seam of the glove is trimmed with ruched pink silk, gold lace and spangles. Gloves of this type could be worn by both men and women."

Recent exhibitions at Bath have included Women of Style with more " than 60 outfits and accessories from the Museum’s collection which belonged to six women. The exhibition emphasized the personal — from a day dress worn by new bride Mary Chamberlain in 1888 to the stark cream shift dress by Yves Saint Laurent, worn by famous ballerina, Margot Fonteyn." Primitive Streak: Using Art to Understand Science is an innovative exhibition that "was the brainchild of fashion designer Helen Storey and her biologist sister, Dr Kate Storey."

"Twenty-seven stunning pieces charted ten key events in the first 1,000 hours of human life.  From the spectacular ‘Sperm Coat’, made of embroidered thread with the tails hanging free, to the amazing ‘Spinal Column’ dress, of red silk printed in a DNA pattern complete with a cascade of 8,000 fibre optic endings, this show used a highly visual approach to explaining the miracle of life itself."

What we find difficult to draw our eyes away from is a picture on the site that illustrates the number of period dresses that the Museum has in store. Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938) was a member of the Bloomsbury group and a collection of her clothing resides at the Bath Museum. She was, according to a Wikipedia article, the inspiration for Mrs Bidlake in Huxley's Point Counter Point, for Hermione Roddice in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love, for Lady Caroline Bury in Graham Greene's It's a Battlefield, and for Lady Sybilline Quarrell in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On. The Coming Back (1933), another novel which portrays her, was written by Constance Malleson, one of Ottoline's many rivals for the affection of Bertrand Russell. A quote attributed to Morrell is on the Bath Costume site and perhaps sums up how we all feel about wearing beautiful clothes: 'I love being really rather gorgeous.’ We couldn't agree more , Lady Morrell.

Transportation Futuristics Exhibit

A virtual exhibit timed to accompany an exhibit on the UC/Berkeley campus, Transportation Futuristics Exhibit online is extensive, humorous and generously illustrated.

Get Set for Super Driving! by Ralph Stein, This Week Magazine, November 19, 1961 ran this caption for a futuristic hovercar:"Here they come! That snappy '62 convertible is leading a parade of the future — the cars of tomorrow that will float on air, follow the road by themselves, run on jet-turbine power."

In Science & Mechanics' Sept. 1967 issue, a two wheeled road wonder was depicted: "This incredible gyroscopic car may be the forerunner of a new breed of gyro-stabilized vehicles, including boats and tractors." One of the illustrations from a February 1948 issue of National Geographic depicts a combination plane and detachable automobile. This Week Magazine in 1961 pictured Ford's Levacar, which would defeat friction by riding cushion of air. In the model shown is driven by propeller. The website's 'about us' section explores some of the approaches to transportation problems devised in the 19th century:"This exhibit examines some of the efforts to address transportation needs in ways that didn’t quite get off the ground literally or figuratively. Are the designers simply ahead of their time? Are the failures attributable to an infrastructure that never anticipated such a development? Was there ultimately no way to make the new idea work financially? "Consider the Beach Pneumatic Railway, New York City’s earliest subway: hundreds of thousands of delighted New Yorkers took a smooth ride on compressed air while this model railway was open from 1870-1873. Despite commuter enthusiasm, this sumptuously decorated subway failed. The pneumatic power was too expensive to produce and was difficult to control. Even after switching to cheaper and more reliable steam power, raising financing was impossible when it became apparent that government subsidies would not be forthcoming." Don't overlook the Oddities Gallery: Within are examples of streamlined design, maglev trains, amphibious recreational vehicles, personal flying machines, and animal-assisted transportation. One proposed innovation was a proposed "flying saucer bus" that would alleviate traffic congestion (though one wonders at the number of heliports it would demand and the increased air traffic), according to an article in Science and Mechanics, December 1950. "Escape pods can prevent needless air-crash deaths!" so states a Mechanix Illustrated in March 1960, though one wonders how secure those parachute-like devices would be in suspending the pods down to earth. Another oddity noted by Robert M. Salter in Trans-planetary subway systems: a burgeoning capability, was "a 'transplanetary subway' [that] would stretch from New York to Los Angeles with few stops in between. The train would be propelled by magnetic levitation (maglev) and the air in the tunnel segments would be evacuated to eliminate air resistance. With no resistance whatsoever, the train would be capable of speeds exceeding several times the speed of sound."

"Later research estimated that the entire population of Los Angeles would have to commute by this subway to New York every day, and the entire population of New York would have to commute to L.A. every day in order for this proposal to be economically viable."Some of the illustrated categories are: Supersonic Transport, Pneumatic Transportation (depicted in the 1860s), Personal Rapid Transit, Monorail, Maritime, Intelligent Systems and Ground Effect Machines. They will keep the online viewers engaged with this marvelous website.