Delegates representing colleges from all over New England, four former presidents and a founding faculty of Montserrat College of Art were present on Friday, March 29 as the college inaugurated Kurt T. Steinberg, Ed.D. as its eighth president during a ceremony at The Cabot Theatre. The processional, played by the Beverly High School Band directed by Adam Costa, included Montserrat faculty and trustees, speakers and the delegates.
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Intent follows the bullet...
An article about the article I wrote about being stopped by the police, which illustrates that things appear for “first time as tragedy; the second time as farce.” And I would add for the third time a viral Social Media posts.
Read MoreUncommon Monument: A King Memorial for Boston...
A bunch of really smart architects (and me) weigh in on what we want (and don’t want) in a Boston memorial to Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. Hosted by the Boston Society of Architects and WGBH
Read MoreAn index of love...
What happens when your only memory of love is a photograph?
Read MoreBAGLY Prom photos Gallery Kayafas
Social documentarian Zoe Perry-Wood has a gorgeous show at Kayafas - pictures of BAGLY kids going to their prom. These sweet and participatory portraits and images of kids getting together to celebrate made my heart sing. It was also really great to see photos of LGBT kids just being kids and Perry-Wood photographs them acting like the beautiful kids they are. Here are photos of teenaged queer couples and dancers and lovers made without exploitation or salacious probing. They whole show feels like a gift from Perry-Wood to the kids and a gift from the kids to us. How different my life may have been if I had walked into this gallery as a teenager.
Troy...the book is a LOT better
Anything would be a let down after Epheseus, but man, Troy is really hard to take. First off, there is a huge wooden horse inside of the entry gate to Troy. It is filled with laughing school children running around it and climbing inside it. Parents surround the thing to get a photo of their moppet inside the Trojan Horse. If you were expecting something regal and solemn (like Epheseus) here you would be sorely disappointed. It is a theme park grafted onto a major archeological site. It does not sit will with the visitor at all. The entry is like Homericland at Turkey Disney. It is a strange thing.
My city of ruins....
Nothing prepares you for Epheseus.
Settling in...
Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying "One should avoid talking overmuch about the weather." I tend to agree. I have to say though that my arrival in Savannah was the coldest day of the year here. It was cute to see all the people bundled up in their parkas and scarves on a 39 degree day. I walked around in a sweater and jeans and just laughed my head off.
I don't know what you have heard, but Savannah is a breathtakingly beautiful place. The apocryphal story is that Sherman was so overcome with the city's beauty that he decided not to burn it. The truth is that by the time Sherman got to Savannah, there was no reason to destroy it. That - plus an aggressive restoration movement - accounts for the richness of architecture here.
There is a gothic sensibility to the place that fuels rumors that it is haunted. I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe in the sheer weight of history and this place really has it. I walked by the Savannah Cotton Exchange building and noticed that there were plaques everywhere about what person had done what where. There was even a plaque commemorating the invention of the cotton gin. But there was no plaque indicating that Africans and African-Americans were sold as chattels on that spot. Now there is a river walk, bars and restaurants, little shops and all that kind of stuff in the area, but if you look, you can see the brick staging areas where auctions were held for everything from pecan pralines to people.
The longer I stay here the more these incongruities will be revealed. I am hoping that they are influencing what I am doing here, just as I hope I have some lasting affect on the people I meet and teach.