It had already been a long drive when I first caught sight of The Very Large Array, an assembly of enormous radio telescopes in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico.

As a space geek, I’d been beyond excited to see this facility, more precisely located fifty miles west of Socorro, but I have to admit that my first reaction was disappointment. At first glance, I thought they looked sort of small, not unlike the little cable dishes I see attached to balconies in Manhattan. I thought there’d be more of them, I thought they’d look more impressive.

What I didn’t realize was exactly how much the New Mexico landscape was playing with my sense of size of proportion. My first glimpse only caught a few of the 27 telescopes, which are indeed enormous — 82 feet in diameter, 230 tons each. The dishes are networked together, so they function as one giant dish. And they’re on train tracks so they can change configuration — at its widest spread, that would be 22 miles.

The array’s greatest claim to fame was in the movie Contact — it was where Jodi Foster first “heard” sounds of alien life. But here in reality, the VLA isn’t used for seeking evidence of alien life. (A caustic sign in the visitor center explaining this also said, “sorry Jodi”. I’m sure she’s all broken up about it.) It’s about visualizing radio signals, “seeing” UV energy and X-Rays, which is how astronomers study and map what’s happening in outer space. Or rather, what’s happened: by the time this energy reaches earth, it’s evidence of events long since past. Like, for example, explosions that occurred at the very beginning of the universe.

While that doesn’t have quite the cachet as listening for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, listening to the universe’s beginnings strikes my non-scientific mind as almost as strange and magical.

_{All photos by  Alison Stein Wellner.}

In 2008, a chance purchase at a local furniture and antiques auction was about to change John Maloof’s life. Of course, he didn’t know that at the time. He had only purchased the box of old photographs on the off chance that it might contain some historic pictures of Portage Park for a book he was co-authoring.

It didn’t.

Instead, it contained something much, much more valuable – the stunning work of Vivian Maier, an unknown street photographer who captured the essence and the people of Chicago during the 1950s and 60s.

Discovering exactly who Vivian Maier was, how she developed her extraordinary vision, and introducing her work to the world has been Maloof’s focus ever since.

He started by displaying some of Maier’s work on a blog vivianmaier.com and linked it to Flickr, the online photo sharing website. From there, it didn’t take long for Maier’s work to go viral and gain a fanatical following.

The Hidden World of Vivian Maier from The Kitchen Sisters on Vimeo.

Exhibitions of her photographs were shown in Denmark and Norway last year, and this year the Chicago Cultural Center is hosting a Vivian Maier Exhibition from January to April.

Meanwhile, Maloof, together with Anthony Rydzon, and award-winning Danish documentary film maker, Lars Mortensen, formed ToneLoof Productions, a Chicago based documentary film production company, with the goal of producing a film (and book) based on the discovery of photographer Vivian Maier.

They joined Kickstarter to help fund the project, with a goal of raising $20,000. With 21 days left, over $90,000 has already been donated, well exceeeding their original goal.

Backers are offered a number of different incentives to donate, from receiving one of Vivian Maier’s actual film spools from a roll that has been developed (complete with authenticity paperwork) to a digital download or hard copy DVD of the completed film and a copy of the completed book, depending on the amount donated.

For an in depth look into John Maloof’s amazing discovery, watch this Vivian Maier report from Chicago Tonight.

Scotland and England, in Northern Europe, and Bahrain, on the Arabian Peninsula, would not at first seem to have a great deal in common. One thing connects them, though: the peoples of all three countries have close connections to living by and working on the sea. That is the idea which the British Council and the Celtic Connections Festival had in mind when they brought five musicians from Bahrain, three from England, and three from Scotland together for five days in Glasgow with the commission to collaborate to create a program of music focused on the seafaring traditions of both countries, and their traditional musics which have grown up around this.

A full on evening from Shifting Sands, as the project is known, took place in the Strathclyde Suite of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. That’s a room which lends itself to a less formal atmosphere than the main hall, an atmosphere which the musicians took advantage of in explaining their work and occasionally joking about learning each others’ traditions. languages, and songs.

They engaged the audience immediately by opening with the sea chanty Bulley in the Alley, the strong and familiar a capella work rhythms of the song given unusual color by accompanying rhythms from Bahrain. A Northumbrian seafaring song joined with a Scottish strathspey and a Bahraini sawt followed. Through the evening, two musicians from Bahrain played percussion instruments from their homeland. Hassan Hajari played the oud, a bouzouki like instrument, while Mohammed Aseeri played the qanun, a instrument a bit like a zither or a plucked dulcimer. Ahmed Al Ghanem played the flute. On the English side of things, Andy Mellon, musical director of the project, was at the piano and played trumpet, while Pete Flood was at the drum kit and Sam Carter played guitar, sang lead, and did a good bit of the commentary. Corrina Hewat sang lead and played harp and handled commentary as well,keeping thing lively and informal as is her style. Inge Thomson played accordion, and Matheu Watson was on fiddle.

A song from Egypt and several from Bahrain ensued, as did a traditional song that’s found in many forms across the British Isles. telling the story of a woman who is happy her love has gone to sea and is able to better himself from his former work as a shoemaker.

All through these songs and tunes, each of the musicians was involved and engaged and contributing to the music: Among them, they come up with a sound both different and familiar, a fusion of music that really worked and which, clearly, they were happy to be sharing with the audience. The audience members liked it too. There was a feeling of interest and acceptance through the nearly packed out house, and a lively buzz of conversation at the break before the second set.

It was a set that delivered on the promise of the first half of the evening. With musicians and audience increasingly relaxed and engaged with each other as the night went on, all on stage got involved in the funny and silly rhythms of the the song The Herring’s Heed, and the quieter but still lively Bahraini piece Simsima, named after one of the ships common in the Persian Gulf around Bahrain, and the Shetland tunes The Full Rigged Ship and the New Rigged Ship. Shetland native Thomson clearly was deep into the music while leading the ensemble of musicians on tunes from her native islands. The stunner of the whole evening, though, was another Scottish song, The Mingulay Boat Song, from the Outer Hebrides, in which the singing was underscored by traditional vocal chant from Bahrain which is sung by pearl divers there. Both with voices and through instruments, it was piece that brought the presence and place of those who sail the sea waters, and the longing and loneliness and passion that goes along with that, powerfully into the heart of the concert.

At as the music drew to its close with another lively sea chanty, the musicians were clearly moved and delighted as audience members stood to give then a prolonged round of clapping and calling for more. Coming back on stage, they reprised one of the songs they’d played earlier (‘we really didn’t think we’d get an encore,” Mellon said) as musicians and audience both came to the end of an adventurous and memorable evening.

Photographs made with permission of artists, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

This concert took place, and I wrote this piece, before the current political events emerged in Bahrain. I considered rescheduling it, but on reflection it seemed to me that perhaps a different sort of news on the country also has its place just now, as does consideration of the connecting and healing power of the arts.

Stories about giant, freaky, rogue waves 100 feet and higher have always been around. But scientists, believing that the basic physics of ocean waves indicated it was virtually impossible for these waves to exist, considered reported sighting to be nothing more than nautical tall tales spun by over enthusiastic mariners. 

A couple of decades ago that all changed when a group of scientists, caught onboard a British research ship during a vicious North Sea storm, recorded waves reaching 90 feet and higher. Suddenly, what had been considered nautical tall tales became  scientific fact. Rogue waves did exist and they happened a lot, something that has scientists struggling for answers and big wave surfers very happy.

Fascinated by this phenomenon, author Susan Casey spent five years researching and  seeking explanations from wave scientists, mariners, and surfers about these rogue waves. It’s a journey that took her around the world, from surfing hot spots such as Hawaii and Tahiti to the shipping insurers in London and salvage experts in South Africa.

The resultant book The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean is a fascinating and addictive account of the unknown rogue waves that attracts, in particular, two seriously diverse groups – extreme surfers who spend their lives waiting for the ultimate rouge wave and brainy wave scientists who struggle to create more effective climate models and forecasts.

While Casey appears more at home with the surfers, watching the waves and the action, she also spent time with wave scientists. Attending the 10th International Workshop and Wave Hindcasting and Forecasting and Coastal Hazard Symposium in, where else, the North Shore of Hawaii, Casey looked for answers to the big question:  Will global warming lead to stormier oceans and bigger waves?  The answer, given hesitantly as there is not enough data to confirm a long-term trend, was a resounding yes.

But what data there is leans towards a future of freakier waves, higher ocean levels, meaner hurricanes, and more dramatic geologic events – volcanoes and earthquakes – that could lead to devastating tsunamis. A grim outlook, given that 60 percent of the world’s population lives within 30 miles of a coastline.

The Hawaiians have a saying ‘Mai juli’oe I kokua o ke kai!’ – never turn your back on the ocean. And after reading Susan Casey’s The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, you can be sure that I won’t be turning my back to the ocean any time soon.

The stores all smell the same; a divinely fresh patchouli-ish scent that is captured in their perfume named “Karma.”

Graffiti-style (and rather hard to read) handwritten signs are always perched above and around the handmade, all-natural soaps, shampoos and bath bars.

The staffs are all very scrubbed-looking hipster types who wear a lot of black and have a variety of pierced extremities.

They are Lush stores worldwide, and so what if it’s a chain – I simply adore visiting them when I travel.

The one in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, where I bought the little tub of Dream Cream that you see in the photo – roughly translated into Paradise cream on the Lush Japan website.

It was a leap of faith because I didn’t speak Japanese and the staff didn’t speak English, so my request for “Something for sensitive but slightly oily skin with a little bit of an eczema problem” brought nothing but puzzled looks, of course. Patting my face gently and saying “Ow!” and pantomiming peeling skin resulted in giggles, but they did offer the right product suggestion.

The Lush winkel (store) in Amsterdam is in – of course – a charming skinny Dutch building, the prices were written in guilders on my first visit and then Euros on my next, and they sell the hilariously-named douchegels which is NOT the sort of douche that Americans are used to.

After going wild in the Hong Kong Lush, I learned my lesson about not buying too many heavy bath bombs that end up feeling like I’m carrying a bag full of pleasant-smelling rocks up and down those hilly Hong Kong streets.

The London store, the Chicago store, the incomparable Kroppspudder (powder) selection in Norway….even a bland outpost in the Dallas’ North Cross Mall….all different yet all the same.

A chain of chain store visits across the planet, bringing comforting similarity plus striking differences with every stop.

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