Travel

Joan L. Cannon writes: We went on trips to places that would yield the most various experiences in the smallest locales. For instance, an abandoned talc quarry where, with a jackknife as your only tool, you could return to camp with magnetite crystals, garnets, pyrites, and black tourmaline. I know that few people are of greater importance than the primary school teachers and young parents who initiate children into the practice of paying attention – not in a classroom or to lectures alone, but everything that proves to them that they are sentient and alive – in the present. more »

"A popular misconception is that all manuscripts were made by monks and contained religious texts, but from the 11th century onwards professional scribes and artists were increasingly involved in a thriving book trade, producing both religious and secular texts." Spanning the 8th to the 17th centuries, the 150 manuscripts and fragments [in the exhibit] guide us on a journey through time, stopping at leading artistic centers of medieval and Renaissance Europe. more »

We were told that 500 Cleveland police and 2,800 police from elsewhere were keeping the protests peaceful. They slept in the dorms of the local colleges and were moved around in local school buses. These were the friendliest police I have ever seen at a protest. They spoke with the various march leaders as though they were working for the tourist bureau. Only the members of the Pennsylvania State Police were added to the Philadelphia police. While their numbers waxed and waned, police presence in the street was no greater than in a normal protest. more »

Founded by anti-clerical French revolutionaries to celebrate the glory of science, it is no small irony that the museum is now partially housed in the former abbey church of Saint Martin des Champs. The museum's collection originated with a selection of mechanical contraptions bequeathed to Louis XVI by the mechanical engineer Jacques Vaucanson, inventor of the most renowned automaton of the 18th century, a talking, flapping mechanical duck. more »