We have returned from a 10-day vacation and enjoyed fresh country air in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts while staying in a former 1849 schoolhouse converted to a private home over a century ago. The building is near one of the entrances to the Appalachian Trail. http://www.appalachiantrail.org/about-the-trail/terrain-by-region/massachusetts We attended the 10th annual Berkshire Arts Festival in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and heard the California Guitar Trio at Infinity Music Hall & Bistro in Norfolk, Connecticut http://infinityhall.com/ We spent a few hours at The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, usually referred to simply as "The Clark," an art museum with a large and varied collection located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In June 2008 it expanded with the addition of the Stone Hill Center, a 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) building designed by Tadao Ando on a nearby wooded hillside that contains exhibition space and a conservation studio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Art_Institute

The Clark http://www.clarkart.edu/museum/exhibitions-current.cfm

We began our journey in Rochester, New York and ended it in Corning. Rochester was founded in 1811 as Rochesterville, and in 1834 became known as Rochester. Some of its nicknames are Flour City (was the largest flour-producing city in the world in the 1830s), Young Lion of the West and Flower City. It's also been called Birthplace of Amateur Photography, Picture City, Kodak Town and The World's Image Centre. In the 1840s, Frederick Douglass founded a newspaper called The North Star. In 1853, John Jacob Bausch opened an optical shop; he later created with Henry Lomb the company known today as Bausch and Lomb. The Susan B. Anthony house still stands, where she was arrested for voting in 1872. http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/index.php In 1888, Kodak founder George Eastman invented a box camera and roll film. In 1921 Eastman founded the Eastman School of Music and built the Eastman Theatre. In 1928, Eastman and Thomas Edison introduced color motion pictures to the world from the Eastman estate. In 1938, Chester Carlson developed the first xerographic image.

The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, explores every facet of glass, including art, history, culture, science and technology, craft, and design. Conceived of as an accredited educational institution and founded in 1950 by the Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated), the Museum has never been a showcase for the company or its products, but rather exists as a non-profit institution that preserves and expands the world's understanding of glass. The Museum is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of glass--more than 45,000 glass objects, spanning 3,500 years of glassmaking history. Visitors can also explore the science and technology of glass in a hands-on exhibit area, see live narrated glassmaking demonstrations and try their hand at glassworking in short daily workshops. When the Museum officially opened to the public in 1951, it contained a significant collection of glass and glass-related books and documents: there were 2,000 objects, two staff members, and a research library, housed in a low, glass-walled building designed by Harrison & Abramovitz. In June 1972, disaster struck as Hurricane Agnes emptied a week's worth of rain into the surrounding Chemung River Valley. On June 23rd, the Chemung River overflowed its banks and poured five feet four inches of floodwater into the Museum. When the waters receded, staff members found glass objects tumbled in their cases and crusted with mud, the library's books swollen with water. According to Martin and Edwards, 528 of the museum's 13,000 objects had sustained damage. At the time, Buechner described the flood as "possibly the greatest single catastrophe borne by an American museum." Museum staff members, under the directorship of Robert H. Brill were faced with the tremendous task of restoration: every glass object had to be meticulously cleaned and restored, while the library's contents had to be cleaned and dried page by page, slide by slide, even before being assessed for rebinding, restoration, or replacement. On August 1, 1972, the Museum reopened with restoration work still underway. By 1978, the Museum had outgrown its space. Gunnar Birkerts designed a new addition, creating a flowing series of galleries with the library at their core, linked to the old building via light-filled, windowed ramps. With memories of the hurricane still fresh, the new galleries were raised high above the flood line on concrete pillars. The new Museum opened to the public on May 28, 1980, exactly 29 years after its first opening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corning_Museum_of_Glass

At the Corning museum, we saw Sasanian glass, crystallophone, micromosaics, offhand wares, Hedwig beaker, demonstration of glass optical fiber, telescopes, lenses, and an explanation of the difference between fakes and forgeries. Fake means altered genuine object. Forgery means copy or imitation.

Sasanian Glass is the glassware produced between the 3rd and the 7th centuries AD within the limits of the Sasanian Empire, namely Northern Iraq, Iran and Central Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanian_glass

Libraries visited during our recent vacation:
Massachusetts: New Marlborough, Stockbridge (also houses museum and historical archives), Williamstown--library at The Clark Art Institute.
New York: Corning, Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County with two large buildings connected by an underground walkway and a secluded reading garden accessible from one of the buildings.

A battle is shaping up in California that pits two big retailers against a big insurer over who will pick up the costs of a new breed of consumer class-action litigation tied to merchants' collection of ZIP codes for credit-card purchases. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is resisting efforts by Crate & Barrel and Children's Place Retail Stores Inc. to use their liability-insurance policies to pay legal bills in defending against lawsuits alleging violation of consumers' privacy, according to court filings by Hartford. The insurer maintains that the insurance policies exclude coverage for alleged violations of certain privacy statutes. Hartford's fight against the two retailers is believed to be the first of many showdowns to come as insurers seek court rulings that their policies don't obligate them to pony up what is likely to total hundreds of millions of dollars for the costs of defending against the burgeoning number of ZIP-code lawsuits. The two retailers are among more than 100 merchants facing separate lawsuits in California courts since February. That is when the California Supreme Court ruled that ZIP codes qualify as personal-identification information under a longstanding state privacy statute. The statute prohibits merchants from requesting personal-identification information when customers pay by credit card. The court noted that ZIP codes can be used by retailers to deduce a customer's full address, which can be sold to other businesses. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584404576440122023916928.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

July 13, 2011 Morning Minutes
Website of the Day Artocracy www.artocracy.org
This digital marketplace for original art helps connect artists with those who are looking for original, affordable prints. Prices range from $20 to $50 for individual prints, and artists benefit from exposure and sales. Check it out; you might find something you like.
Number to Know 400 million: Estimated number of people who watched the Live Aid concert on TV on this date in 1985.
This Day in History July 13, 1923: The Hollywood sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland," but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949. http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/news/x977394258/Morning-Minutes-July-13