Broadway luminaries Sherie Rene Scott and Dick Scanlan, RTA’s newest volunteers, along with volunteer Sean Fischer, donated their formidable talents to guide the prisoner-participants in Rehabilitation Through The Arts on a powerful theatrical journey. The workshop “Theatricalizing the Personal Narrative” took place over several months in Woodbourne Correctional Facility, a medium security men’s prison in Sullivan County, and ended with a riveting presentation on June 9th of monologues performed by prisoners for invited prisoner and outside guests. Some pieces were light, but most, dealing with confusion, loss and remorse, were wrenching – a child torn from his mother, a brutal incident in the prison yard, a 14 year old girl caught in the crossfire. The audience was moved by the men’s talent, as well as their courage to speak so deeply and honestly about their lives, displaying, as Sherie commented, a “level of commitment and bravery it takes some actors years to go to”. http://www.rta-arts.com/blog

Space Shuttle Discovery 360VR Images June 22, 2011 Move the mouse in any direction to scan.
http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html

Analysis of new images of a curious “hot spot” on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon’s thermal history. The hot spot is a concentration of a radioactive element thorium sitting between the very large and ancient impact craters Compton and Belkovich that was first detected by Lunar Prospector’s gamma-ray spectrometer in 1998. The Compton-Belkovich Thorium Anomaly, as it is called, appears as a bull’s-eye when the spectrometer data are projected onto a map, with the highest thorium concentration at its center. Recent observations, made with the powerful Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) optical cameras, have allowed scientists to distinguish volcanic features in terrain at the center of the bull’s-eye. High-resolution three-dimensional models of the terrain and information from the LRO Diviner instrument have revealed geological features diagnostic not just of volcanism but also of much rarer silicic volcanism. The volcanic province’s very existence will force scientists to modify ideas about the Moon’s volcanic history, says Bradley Jolliff, PhD, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the team that analyzed the LRO images. The work is described in the July 24 advance online issue of Nature Geoscience. Lunar volcanism is very different from terrestrial volcanism because the Moon is a small body that cooled quickly and never developed rock-recycling plate tectonics like those on our planet. The Moon, thought to have been created when a Mars-size body slammed into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, was originally a hellish world covered by a roiling ocean of molten rock some 400 kilometers deep. http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22512.aspx

In the Morse Museum of American Art's jaw-dropping 12,000-square-foot wing devoted to Laurelton Hall, Louis Comfort Tiffany's huge estate on the North Shore of Long Island, there are layers and layers—of materials, of meaning, of history. A walk through the first-floor galleries (upstairs are offices and an expanded library) with museum curator Jennifer Perry Thalheimer made clear how Tiffany's blue-and-white dining room—the original seated 150—with its marble mantle, unadorned except for its three built-in clocks telling the hour, day and month, related to the outdoor Daffodil Terrace, which in turn connected the house with its gardens, whose pond, pools and streams were fed by water from inside the house. Laurelton's three-story reception hall was the fountain court, seemingly right out of the Alhambra. Liquid pouring from the mouth of a tall, narrow vase into its basin—continually changing hues thanks to the rotations of an underwater pair of lead, brass and glass color wheels—was the source for elaborate hydraulics that sent a stream flowing through a rill that pierced the exterior wall to feed outside water features of the 580-acre estate, itself overlooking Cold Spring Harbor. The main house was built from 1902 to 1905 and had 84 rooms, including a smoking room where Tiffany could puff away under a mural depicting an opium dream. There also were accommodations for student artists; greenhouses; a bowling alley; a working farm; and a lighted, cork-lined tunnel leading to the beach on Long Island Sound. Tiffany (1848-1933), son of the founder of the famous jewelry store, began his career as an Orientalist painter. His travels in North Africa inspired the smokestack-disguised-as-minaret at Laurelton Hall, the detailed architect's model of which survived the 1957 fire that gutted the mansion, as did those color wheels in the fountain. So, too, did an elaborately carved pair of massive teakwood doors that granted entrance to the estate's art gallery. They came from India, and were imported by the decorating firm Tiffany operated with the artist and furniture designer Lockwood de Forest. In all, more than 250 art and architectural objects associated with the estate are on view in the Morse's new wing. The Morse Museum opened at its current location in 1995, displaying Tiffany's creations as well as work by John La Farge, Daniel Chester French, John Singer Sargent and Frank Lloyd Wright plus Arts and Crafts furniture and pottery. A 1999 addition houses the magnificent Byzantine-Romanesque interior of the chapel Tiffany created for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804576191023428412608.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is located at 445 North Park Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789. (407) 645-5311 http://www.morsemuseum.org/

Eggplant fries from Terzo Piano at The Art Institute of Chicago
Dipping sauce:
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 tablespoon chopped kosher pickle or pickle relish
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
Kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
Fries:
1 1-pound eggplant, cut crosswise into 1/2" rounds, then into 1/2"-thick strips
Vegetable oil (for frying)
1 cup rice flour
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons za'atar
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt plus more for seasoning
Serves six
Ingredient Info: Za'atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend that includes sumac, herbs, and sesame seeds. It's available at specialty foods stores, Middle Eastern markets, and igourmet.com
Read directions at: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggplant-Fries-366730 Chefs at Terzo Piano soak the eggplant strips in ice water before frying. When the cold water-logged eggplant hits the hot oil, a crispy coating forms.
Bon Appetit magazine August 2011