Blog – Page 51 – Ellis Hollow

David Bromberg and The Angel Band (State Theater, Ithaca, 12/3/2010)

Packed the lumbar pillow and braved the State Theater for an excellent show by David Bromberg and company Friday. He and the band haven’t lost much since I first saw him 35 years ago as the opening act for Hot Tuna at SUNY Binghamton when I was still in high school.

Back in the day, says Bromberg (if you can believe him), he played a now-defunct theater here in Ithaca that had a strip club nearby that employed a dancer who danced to one of his songs, and she came over and danced for the concert. Here’s the story.

Sharon (from 20 years ago): ‘It won’t cost you no money, boy. You got to pay with your heart.’

Here’s what the band looks like now:

Hustling across the street into the theater I noticed a car with some bizarre bead work animals on the hood. Little did I know that it was the art of Bromberg’s wife, Nancy Josephson, who leads The Angel Band (they opened the show and sang back-up during the main act). Check out her cars/bead/other media art here (and click older to see more).

She’s also been working to raise money (and hope) for Haiti since long before the earthquake:

Black Friday

You can avoid the Black Friday blues by ordering Ellis Hollow calendars. Three designs for 2011. See box top of right hand column or follow the link to zazzle.com.

Fate of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory

The 79-year-old Lord and Burnham Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory at Cornell is crumbling. Excellent article on it’s fate in the Cornell Chronicle.

Built by greenhouse architects Lord & Burnham Co. in 1931 for Liberty Hyde Bailey, the first dean of the College of Agriculture and a prominent palm taxonomist, the facility has deteriorated, with internal and external falling panes of glass, rotting wooden glazing bars and peeling asbestos-laden glazing putty. The college decided, based on advice from the Department of Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety, to close the Conservatory Greenhouse until a long-term solution can be found.

Restoration costs have proved prohibitive. But “There will be a conservatory in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,” says Senior Associate Dean Jan Nyrop, who will lead a discussion of the teaching functions of Cornell’s greenhouses Nov. 17 at 4:30 p.m. in 404 Plant Science Building.

Bloom day scans: Clematis, grass

Thanks, as usual, for Carol for hosting at May Dreams. More scans here. Flower scanning directions are here.

Trees and Other Ramifications at the Johnson Museum

I’ve heard great things about a current exhibition Trees and Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature and Culture at the Johnson Museum on the Cornell University campus through January 2. (Exhibit description, page down.)

I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet. But I have explored the museum sponsored Tree Blog that accompanies the exhibition and asks people to join in celebration by submitting images, stories, descriptions, poems, photos, or any other creative response to an inspiring tree. Definitely worth exploring.

Here are some inspiring trees I’ve found on Libe Slope, within spitting distance of the museum. If I’d have let the frame drift a little to the right in the first one, you’d have been able to see the Johnson in the background.

Simulated tilt-shift looking south from Uris Library.