text:
Bernadine Strik

Professor, NWREC Berry Crops Research Leader
bernadine.strik [at]

Office: 541-737-5434

Agricultural & Life Sciences

Agricultural & Life Sciences 4017

2750 SW Campus Way

2750 SW Campus Way
Corvallis, OR 97331

Oregon has a diverse, economically important berry crop industry with about 24,000 acres harvested for a farm gate value of over $200 million. Berry crops, including blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, and kiwi fruit, are grown on over 1000 family farms in Oregon. Blueberry and blackberry acreage continues to grow with new growers requiring basic information on all aspects of production.

The berry crops research and statewide extension program provides outreach and engagement programs and applied research to help growers remain economically viable in this global berry market. Educational and research programs focus on methods of improving production efficiency in berry crops, particularly developing economical production systems that improve yield and quality, nutrient management, and organic production systems. In addition, I serve as the OSU lead on the USDA-ARS & OSU Cooperative berry crops breeding program, led by Dr. Chad Finn (USDA-ARS breeder at the Horticultural Crops Research Unit, Corvallis). This cooperative program started in 1917 with the objective of releasing new cultivars to benefit growers in the Pacific Northwest (PNW).

In my position, I conduct extension educational programs for the commercial berry crop industries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, hardy kiwifruit, and minor berries) from my campus office in the Department of Horticulture, Corvallis. In addition, I am the Berry Crops Research Leader at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center (OSU) in Aurora. My research interests focus on whole plant physiology, improving yield and quality, machine harvest efficiency, alternative production practices, plant nutrition, cold hardiness, and organic production systems. I have published many scientific articles on berry crop production and physiology and the extension publications and blueberry pruning video I have co-authored are widely distributed worldwide. I developed and am the lead instructor for an online Blueberry Production & Physiology Course that has been taken by growers, advisors, and peers worldwide ( I am actively involved in the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) and the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS). I was chair of the Vaccinium Section of the ISHS for 8 years and co-convened the 9th ISHS Vaccinium Symposium in Corvallis in 2008 and serve as chair of the Section for Vine and Berry Fruits of the ISHS. I represent the ASHS (one of three representative) on the Executive Council of the ISHS, effective 2018.

Profile Field Tabs

Affiliated with:
Horticulture Extension
Do you accept grad students?:
I accept graduate students for Horticulture
Courses Taught:

I teach two credit courses on alternate years: Production and Physiology of Berries and Grapes (HORT 452/552) and Fruit Materials (HORT 251; co-teach). I also developed and am the instructor for an eCampus course on berry crops (HORT 456/556), taught for the first time in winter 2018.

I have advised 22 graduate students and have served on the committee of an additional 34 graduate students.

I have a "diverse" international background......I was born in Holland, lived in Australia for 6 years (as a young child) and spent my teenage and post-secondary educational years in Canada. I am now a dual USA & Canadian citizen. I was raised on a family farm and now enjoy living in the country with my family.

My Publications


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Celiac disease is not a game. But it should be!

I’ve always wanted to invent my own board game. As a kid, I was the mastermind behind several new games, including Cops and Robbers II—an elaborate affair involving a three-strikes-you’re-out-via-electric-chair rule (the strikes cleverly tracked by attaching clothespins to the unlucky robbers’ T-shirts)—and Orphans, which was exactly what it sounds like and always starred a resourceful eldest orphan child who thrived in her new pseudo-maternal role (played by me, every time). These games were a hit in my neighborhood (or at least in my own head), but a decent board game was always beyond my reach. Turns out, it’s hard to invent a board game. You need a head for logistics, design skills, and, above all, I felt, an imaginative concept.

Then again, if you pay attention to the board games market, you begin to see that innovative concepts are few and far between. I swear, every board or card game introduced in the past ten years has been a remake of an older game that required no special equipment, a mash-up of several previously published games, or yet another addition to the -Opoly family. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my extensive research, it’s this: forget innovation and just rip someone off.

With this rule in mind, I’ve come up with a new board game called Sorry!—The Celiac Edition.

Photo © schrierc | Flickr Creative Commons

Photo © schrierc | Flickr Creative Commons

For this game, you’ll need a board, pieces, and numbered cards from the game Sorry! (which is, by the way, itself a ripoff of Parcheesi).

Although it could be said that for 3 million Americans, this is already the Game of Life, the game is for 3 to 4 players. Every player except one represents a celiac patient and, unlike in the standard version, receives just one of the 16 pawns.

The remaining player represents Gluten. Assigned based on highest cruelty level as determined by popular vote, this player gets all the remaining pawns.

As in Sorry!, the object is to get your pawn from Start to Home, here known as Health. The players all have their own Start and Health spaces, because every road to health is unique.

Play proceeds clockwise, beginning with the sickliest player—again, determined by popular vote. Players draw one card per turn and move their pawns according to the numbers on the pawn. To move his/her pawn off of Start, a player must draw either a 1 or 2 (or, for added realism, 1 only). Gluten is not bound by this rule and may proceed from Start as soon as at least one other player has a pawn in play.

If Gluten moves one of his/her pawns onto a space already occupied by another player’s pawn, that pawn must be returned to Start and the player begins again. Sorry!

If a player draws a card directing him/her to move his/her pawn onto a space already occupied by one of Gluten’s pawns, the player’s pawn must still be returned to Start, because gluten is gluten, no matter how you come by it. Sorry!

Because Gluten has many more pawns in play than anyone else (it’s everywhere!), most players will likely return to Start many times over. Sorry!

If a player besides Gluten moves his/her pawn onto a space already occupied by another player’s pawn, a card is drawn. If even, the players advance each other’s knowledge of the gluten-free lifestyle and are both allowed to remain on the spot. If odd, they confuse each other with misinformation they learned on the internet and must both return to Start. Sorry!

When any player besides Gluten reaches the midway point on the board, Gluten must take one pawn out of play permanently. This signifies the players’ improved ability to manage a gluten-free lifestyle and increases the likelihood that they will eventually make it to Health.

As in the standard game, when a player’s pawn occupies one of his/her own “safe” spaces, he/she is safe from Gluten but may still draw a negative numbered card and be forced to leave the safe space of his/her own little gluten-free counter in his/her own little gluten-free kitchen.

Also as in the standard game, at various designated “slides,” players may skip their pawns forward a few extra spots toward Health. However, if a pawn encounters Gluten at any point along the slide, it must be returned to Start. Once again—sorry!

Photo © LifeSupercharger | Flickr Creative Commons

Photo © LifeSupercharger | Flickr Creative Commons

An accepted—and encouraged—variant calls for beginning the game with all players (except for Gluten) blindfolded. Players must keep their blindfolds on until they reach the midway point; until this time, Gluten reads their cards and implements their moves for them. Depending on personal preference, the player representing Gluten may choose to disclose information about other players’ progress toward Health and say “Sorry!” when sending their pawn back to Start, or leave the players completely in the dark until they have progressed far enough to take their blindfolds off. (I often feel this is the way I’m playing: unsure of how far I’ve come, what mistakes I’ve made, or whether I’ve even moved from Start.)

The first player to reach Health wins—unless that player is Gluten. When one of Gluten’s pawns arrives at Health, it is returned to Start and remains in play. Gluten will never go away, but provided the other players persevere, Gluten never wins.

Tell me about your favorite board game (with a gluten- or allergen-free twist, if you like) in the comments…as long as it’s not Monopoly, because seriously? No one really likes that game.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

15 thoughts on “Celiac disease is not a game. But it should be!

  1. stevestfu says:

    Hahaha this is hilarious. 🙂

    My board game idea is Guess Who? Celiac Edition. Where you play the role of a doctor, and try to figure out which of your patients has a food allergy by asking stupid questions.

    “Does his stomach look happy?”

    It’s based on a sprue story. #wink

    • Molly says:

      Operation would probably be a good one for poking fun at the docs, too. What was “Does his stomach look happy?” supposed to mean? Or do I not want to know?

      • stevestfu says:

        It means you didn’t get my shitty joke.

        Celiac Operation would be bitchin’ though. Except in that, you’d be placing things into the guy to see if he buzzed–or shit his guts out.

        It’d be tricky too. Because booze and hot wings will make you buzz and your ass explode, whether they’re gluten free or not. Har har.

  2. ethan says:

    i like your concept but i would prefer diplomacy: celiac addition in which gluten represents one of the seven major european powers at the beginning of the 20th century. luckily this has the added benefit of being historically accurate coinciding with the increasing prevalence of the disease. i guess we already know who wins but still. never liked sorry very much

  3. rachelmeeks says:

    Aww I like monopoly…

    I wrote a post on playing Clue with only two players. It’s irrelevant to illness, but if you’re sick and not all that social, then you’re lucky to even HAVE another person to play with. Haha. Here’s the link: http://doilooksick.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/clue-for-tw/

    And you have totally made me want to go out and buy Sorry! 🙂

    • Molly says:

      Nice! I love Clue and I often enough find myself in the position of wanting to play a board game but having to reject multiple options because they need X number of players to be any good. I’ll have to save this one away for a rainy day (literally?).

      • Molly says:

        And I know, lots of people THINK they like Monopoly…but IMHO, it is such a terrible game that you must all be lying to yourselves. Ha!

  4. […] about other classic party games that could be made gluten-free. I know by now you’ve all tried Celiac Sorry!, but if you’re itching for more, here it […]

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Covid19 Hits Masaka District as Four Bosses Test Positive

Masaka District has now been put on the list of the Districts that have been hit by deadly Corona Virus Diseases after top four District Officials have been found positive of the Virus.

This shocking information was revealed by Executive Director of Masaka Referral Hospital Dr Nathan Onyachi. He says the affected persons have been taken to virus treatment Center.

“Four members of Masaka district staff have tested positive and we have started contact tracing and testing among the other district officials as well as isolating the contacts,” he said.

He further blamed the continuous spread of the virus to public complacency evidenced by people who no longer care to wear face masks, observe social distancing, among other preventive measures.

He implored Ugandans to practice the preventive measures at individual level even when at their homes so as to contain the spread of the pandemic.

The RDC Masaka District Herman Ssentongo who is also the head of the virus task force said that the results from contacts and other staff members will guide their decision on whether to close the district offices or some departments.

“As of now, our health teams are taking samples from contacts and all district workers so as to determine the wideness of the spread among the contacts. This will guide our decision on the way forward,” he said.

He says the District has been warning the public to be conscious and follow the Ministry of Health guidelines due to complacency of some people.

He revealed that the health teams in Masaka have already buried four people in the region who died of the virus from Kampala.

So far, government has registered 46 Covid-19 related deaths since March this year when the virus outbreak was confirmed in Uganda.

Masaka regional referral hospital has since March this year admitted 84 cases, 74 of whom were treated and discharged. The facility now has 10 virus patients on admission.

The development comes just hours after authorities in Kampala said they had temporarily closed Kawempe Police Station for disinfection after a 15-year-old defilement suspect tested positive for Coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health today confirmed 190 new Covid-19 infections as Uganda’s confirmed cases rose to 4,291 with 1,998 recoveries and 48 deaths since March 2020 when the pandemic outbreak was confirmed in the country.

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The Society for Sustainable Tourism & Development, Inc. (SST) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization providing learning and capacity building  for public and private stakeholders to attain excellence in sustainable tourism and development, environmental conservation and stewardship, and sustainable consumption and production in the hospitality industry. The Objective is to help destination host communities and the tourism industry mitigate climate change, espouse social equity and responsibility as well as economic growth. The approach is to implement green solutions to global issues with policies to practices, for grassroots growth underlining cultural, community and ecological legacy.

GD Partners Logo

Green Destinations Sustainable Tourism Learning, Capacity Building to Awards and Certification!

UNWTO Partner-Signature-Logo-21012019

Our Society for Sustainable Tourism & Development Inc.-SST offers LearningCapacity Building, Educational programs, Green Solutions and Services for public stakeholders: Destinations – LGUs and host communities;  Private stakeholders – Hotels, Resorts, Hospitality, Tour Operators and Businesses with Green Destinations, Global Leaders Program and Green Travel Guide platform to include Environmental Conservation and ComplianceGood Governance, Climate Resilience, to address global challenges of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): food security, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability and climate resilience for the local host community. Water waste -STP (P.T. Amanaid Philippines) and Waste to Energy (W2E) solutions as well as other green destinations innovations are now offered to LGUs and tourism industry for law compliance.

For more information and assistance, contact us.

SST is proud to be part of the Founding Board of the ASIAN ECOTOURISM NETWORK. Join our network!  AEN LOGO

Take action. Make the difference. Learn more on how we can help you!

  1. Diego Ojano Franco

    I am from the town of Buruanga in the Province of Aklan, the Philippines. This town is slowly awakening to the prospect of tourism development with its share of abundant natural resources and proximity to Boracay Island which is 30-minutes away by motorboat, I am learning much from SSTDI and look forward to sharing the initiatives your organization is undertaking in our community and local government. Thank you.

  2. I am media person from Kathmandu , Nepal. Looking forward to work and affiliated with SSTDI to contribute to fulfill the goals stated in the vision and mission of this prestigious organization.

  3. Butching Orillosa

    Good day! Butching Orillosa from IRD of LGU Makati. Interested in getting affiliation/ membership with your Society and the AEN. Please send details via email.

    • Sustainability Guru

      Dear Butching Orillosa,

      We are already in touch with Makati City to make it one of the first and leading city #GreenDetinations! Congratulations in advance! Let’ do this!

  4. Pauline June Palla

    I am Pauline June Palla, a university faculty member from Iloilo City, Philippines. I am teaching tourism and hospitality-related courses and very much interested in promoting sustainable tourism practices and as much as possible I want to share this interest with my students. Interested in getting affiliated/ becoming a member of this very noble society. Please send details via email.

  5. Dear Sir,
    We know about your organizationin social media, do would like to discuss with you to see possibility to work as partner. We work in ecotourism, clima chengue, Sustainable environmentally.

    Best regards
    Aissatu Balde,
    General Secretary.

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Pedro’s experience

Written by Pedro

Three years ago, I went to my first Erasmus+ exchange for people who stutter. I didn’t imagine at the time it would change my life. I will come back to this topic later.

Before the exchanges, I have met pws in my second year of university. It was one of the best things in my life. Cause this “problem” can be in the front of your eyes, but still hidden, you need “special glasses to see it”. So, the persons that deeply know what you go through daily, are other pws. We are special, it’s good. How to explain stuttering to a fluent speaker? It’s so strange, try to say ‘coffee’ but the word won’t get out, the more you force it out, the more it gets stuck and air won’t come out from your throat, it can be frustrating. The best example I come up with, is holding your breath and trying to speak at the same time, it’s not easy right? Well we are professionals doing it, please don’t feel bad, it was many years of training, I think you can do it too.

As professionals, how do we survive in daily life? It’s a challenge sometimes, but not so much complicated. If one word blocks, you can change it to one similar, it works, so some pws are like real dictionaries. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense, and if you want coffee, you won’t ask for another thing, it’s crazy, but I did it once. Or you can change your voice like almost singing, it’s another area of your brain working, so you won’t stutter.

But doing this “techniques” daily is very tiring, frustrating and you’re only avoiding the problem.

So now I will stutter on until I say it, I am not sorry, because I should have my time to stutter and say something funny. Well unless of course, it’s a life-threatening situation, it will be okay to use them.

Now back to the exchanges, it’s was so cool to know pws of different countries and cultures, would their daily life problems be different? Mostly it was the same and they stutter the same way, so stuttering was the bond and the connecting point between us, very enlightening.

The exchanges are like very good opportunities to learn about other countries and cultures, stuttering too but we are “professionals”. Very important is that these exchanges are the best places to stutter, it’s a safe place. Stuttering can be hard, so here we can feel good doing it and be more comfortable with ourselves, sometimes we are so hard at us, for example: “why did I stutter in the job interview”. So here we learn about our fears, work on our goals and talk freely stuttering or not. This year I sang on the stage, it felt great.

In these exchanges, we support each other, share cultures and have great moments. I made amazing friends, some I still talk with on a daily basis.

It was good to meet old friends from previous years, they changed so much, I’m very happy for them.

In the end, it feels bad to say goodbye, but it isn’t ‘goodbye’, it’s ‘I will see you later.’

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3-D Items, Christmas

A Very Merry Everything

I had fun decorating the Petite Café Gift Bag.  While the bag is a poly lined treat bag that is food safe, I trimmed off about an inch from the top and then opened the bag and used the Confetti Stars Punch to give it that extra touch.  Please note that the punch will not go through two layers of the bag so you need to open up the bag and punch a single layer.

All Supplies Stampin’ Up!
Unless otherwise noted
135071 Merry Everything Stamp Set $16.95
126966 Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin’ Pad $5.95
100730 Whisper White Cardstock $8.50
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104332 SNAIL Adhesive $6.95
103579 Paper Snips $9.95
135826 Petite Café Gift Bags $5.95
135865 Under the Tree Tag a Bag Accessory Kit $7.95
135860 Note Tag Punch $16.95
135861 Confetti Stars Punch $21.95

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Stamp With Amy K Double Reward Point Ordering Bonus Ends Tonight!

The new 2018 Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog opened for ordering last week!!  Yippee!!!! You all know that I love to kick off the new catalog with a bang…so I’m doing it again!  I’m offering a double Running Shoe Reward Point Ordering Special to start off your Holiday Catalog ordering!  But order soon, my double point bonus ends tonight!

For every Stampin’ Up! order of $50 or greater (before shipping and taxes through the end of the day today, Tuesday, September 11, you’ll get double the reward points from me!!

Don’t forget to add the Host Code below if your order is under $150 to get your free thank you gift (orders over $150 automatically get the free thank you gift! So please don’t add the host code to those orders as it takes away your Stampin’ Rewards from Stampin’ Up!).

For more information about my Running Shoe Reward points (my buyer reward program), click here.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Happy Shopping!!

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Use this host code when you order and receive a free gift from me!  If your order is over $150, please do not use this code, but you’ll still get the free gift.  The free gift is your choice of any item valued up to $10.00 in the 2018-19 Annual Catalog or in the 2018 Holiday Catalog!  That includes some of the Host Exclusive stamp sets!  See my Rewards page for full details.

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Hosting a holiday catalog event is always fun—and Stampin’ Up! will make it even more delightful with their exciting Dashing Along Host Promotion. If you place an order of $250 or greater or host a party with $250 in sales from September 1–30, you’ll earn their FREE, exclusive Dashing Along Designer Series Paper!

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  • All types of orders qualify for this promotion.
  • Dashing Along Designer Series Paper may not be redeemed using Stampin’ Rewards. Customers will receive this FREE gift with a qualifying order in addition to any Stampin’ Rewards they may earn.
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  • Order Deadline:  September 30, 2018 at 11:50 PM (MT)

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Don’t forget to redeem your Bonus Days coupons with your orders in September!  Click here for a quick PDF showing you how to redeem your coupon codes!

If you need any stamping supplies, I’d be very happy to be your Demonstrator.  Just click on the Order Stampin’ Up! Online Now button on the right side of the screen to go directly to my online store or drop me an email if you have any questions.  Happy Stamping!

  • Visit my online store here.
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Which Legislatures are in Session This Week? - State and Federal Communications

January 11, 2021  •

Which Legislatures are in Session This Week?

Michigan State Capitol - By Brian Charles Watson

Another new batch of states are going in session this week! Are you ready?

  1. Arizona
  2. Arkansas
  3. California
  4. Colorado
  5. Delaware
  6. Georgia
  7. Idaho
  8. Illinois
  9. Iowa
  10. Maryland
  11. Michigan
  12. New Jersey
  13. South Carolina
  14. South Dakota
  15. Tennessee
  16. Texas
  17. Virginia
  18. Washington
  19. West Virginia
  20. Wisconsin
  21. Wyoming

It’s another big week in a busy legislative year. Stay in touch with lobbycomply.com to see when the other starts will convene.

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TL;DR: Recently, it seems to me like we have been a little trigger-happy about closing questions as "only about software/programming". I ask that we please ease off a bit.

Our help page on on-topic-ness says (emphasis in the original):

if it [the question] needs statistical expertise to understand or answer, ask it here

The closure notice I am concerned about here says:

This question appears to be off-topic because EITHER ... OR it focuses on programming, debugging, or performing routine operations within a statistical computing platform.

Now, of course there is a continuum and room for reasonable disagreement as to where "needs statistical expertise" ends and "programming, debugging, or performing routine operations" begins. I will happily VTC questions on R that ask about how to use the *apply() functions, or how to create a particular plot in ggplot. My personal litmus test usually is whether J. Random R Programmer would be expected to be able to answer, potentially on StackOverflow. (I am not concerned with "unclear" questions here.) As in: are help pages and R tutorials enough to answer, or do we actually need to know some statistics?

However, here are just two recent examples of questions that were (almost) closed, although I would definitely argue that the "needs statistical expertise" criterion is met - even if this expertise need not be very deep:

  • Why are my fitted values returning greater than 1 in GLM? OP ran a logistic regression with glm() without specifying family=binomial. You need to understand the difference between OLS and logistic regression to answer here. No, this is not statistical rocket science, but it's something a run-of-the-mill programmer does not know.

  • Can I use bottom up, middle out, or top down approaches with fabletools:reconcile? OP struggles with what I would consider a beta release (the 3rd edition of an online textbook, which is missing a key chapter that can be found in the 2nd edition, and a very rudimentarily documented R function). To answer, you need to have an understanding of hierarchical forecast reconciliation. I referenced JASA, the International Journal of Forecasting and Computational Statistics & Data Analysis in my answer, and necessarily so.

Sometimes it feels to me like some of us see a question that asks about R, perhaps even in the title... and jump to conclusions.

I ask that we please be just a tiny little bit more relaxed about leaving questions open where there might be some statistical aspect, even if it is in the context of software.

Alternatively, we could be more stringent than I would prefer. Fair enough. But then we should communicate this explicitly in our on-topic help page, and hopefully have a discussion here beforehand.

And of course we have discussed similar topics before, which in fact informed our current closure notice as cited above, and also our on-topic page (?).

  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Agree with you on the first example, though with the second one I'd probably consider voting to close. Agree that it's subjective. $\endgroup$ – Tim Oct 6 '20 at 20:32
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Re the first one: I closed that one immediately upon seeing the problem was failure to invoke the function correctly. I don't see this as being a particularly close call, because anyone with the minimum amount of knowledge needed even to use this function would understand what that argument means. Re the second one: I did not VTC precisely because I try to moderate cautiously and, despite having no familiarity with this software, suspected an answer might require some statistical expertise. Thus, I maintain that the right decision was made in both cases and nobody "jumped to conclusions." $\endgroup$ – whuber Oct 6 '20 at 22:18
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ Having written that, I should add that I have had similar feelings about the apparent haste to close some questions as software-only. Perhaps we can come up with better examples of the edge cases and use that as the springboard for characterizing them and providing constructive guidance to the community. $\endgroup$ – whuber Oct 6 '20 at 22:19
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ I don't disagree with the stance here but I boggle a little at the thought that there are R programmers who don't know statistics, or more precisely at the thought that there might not be enough statistical expertise on SO to apply also to questions mixing statistics and programming. (I only use R occasionally and am no expert on the community.) Another criterion I sometimes apply is How far could this possibly interest someone who doesn't know or care about the language concerned? $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 6 '20 at 22:53
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Let's agree that -- although the examples here concern R and that seems by far the most common single language -- the principles cover all kinds of software. $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 6 '20 at 22:55
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @NickCox: this phenomenon might be more prevalent among Python users. There are lots of people who learn Python for "general" use and later start doing Machine Learning using sklearn and similar. These people typically know very little statistics, and they may indeed not know about the Python equivalent of the family parameter. If you learn R, you typically do it for statistics from the very start. As such, my examples may have been ill-chosen. $\endgroup$ – Stephan Kolassa Oct 6 '20 at 22:56
  • 10
    $\begingroup$ A nuance here is that some users come to stats.SE after becoming familiar with the standards of SO.SE, which typically requires a MRE for questions. I surmise that these users sometimes include large blocks of code which are not really essential to their question, but attempting to adhere to the SO.SE standards for questions. Appearing as such in the stats.SE context, the questions appear to solely concern programming or debugging but are in fact statistical at their core. It requires a careful reading of the question to decide which is which, and sometimes I've only realized I was wrong after $\endgroup$ – Sycorax Oct 6 '20 at 23:13
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ Indeed. I boggle even more when I see "I am learning Python and new to machine learning and I want to program X", where X is some highly challenging goal like detecting fraud or predicting stock prices. I am sure there is a joke in there about snake oil somehow. $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 6 '20 at 23:29
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @NickCox You joke, but there's a lot of entry-level work in the world of fraud prevention, in the sense that some high-level executive will tell their IT staff or database team to "figure out some patterns using big data" and suddenly folks with deep knowledge of their computer systems have to become experts in statistics. I've seen this pattern at a number of organizations. It's alarming in retrospect, but also how I got started in this field. $\endgroup$ – Sycorax Oct 7 '20 at 2:49
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @NickCox: what Sycorax says. I have seen this exact dynamic at play in time series forecasting. And the saddest thing about it is that if there is any snake oil involved, then it's people selling it to themselves. (Or top management insisting on it.) And as a matter of fact, we have a Meta question on pretty much precisely this. $\endgroup$ – Stephan Kolassa Oct 7 '20 at 6:37
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ No one wants to make a wrong decision, but making a prompt decision can be in the OP's best interests as well as the community's, especially whenever a question is in good shape for SO and should just be migrated. @whuber's "apparent haste to close" might indeed mean a kind of reflex reaction "but this is just another programming question". I've noticed that I vote more to close software-linked questions than some others, but my vote to be decisive depends on others agreeing. $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 7 '20 at 9:06
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I agree that there is much haste on closing software related questions. domain expertise is often requiered to answer programming question, and it is much more so in the case of statistical software which is so far from low level programming. of course not every question requires statistical expertise, but many ones that get closed, in my opinion, do. $\endgroup$ – carlo Oct 8 '20 at 11:38
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ I have a similar impression, @Carlo, but I would suggest refining your focus to consider only the software-related questions that would not otherwise be closed because of other defects. The majority of questions that we close ostensibly because they are software-focused would nevertheless still be closed because they are not well-formulated questions. The ones that are good questions get migrated to Stack Overflow, but that happens in only a tiny fraction of cases (on average, that happens once per day but we close over 100 questions per day). $\endgroup$ – whuber Oct 8 '20 at 20:28
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ On Meta upvoting the question often means "this is a good question" and not necessarily that OP's stance is agreed on exactly We have criteria to follow on what is acceptable here on CV -- but if experienced people disagree on where posts fall the problem may be (a) the criteria are just not precise enough (b) the criteria are clear but there is still a judgement problem -- academics use criteria in grading but that doesn't stop them disagreeing on whether work is good, or excellent, or whatever, and the same problem is universal (c) the fault lies in the individuals who disagree with you. $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 14 '20 at 12:19
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ (c) is an allusion to an assertion made elsewhere. $\endgroup$ – Nick Cox Oct 14 '20 at 12:20

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Ayurvedic Healing

Restore your body’s ability to function at optimal level and enhance your quality of life using the secrets of the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda Benefits

  • Stress management/anxiety
  • Reducing inflammation
  • Digestive/Gut health
  • Fighting fatigue/low energy
  • Elimination of toxins
  • Depression/Enhancing mental clarity
  • Treating skin conditions
  • Normalizing blood pressure
  • Pain reduction
  • Promoting weight loss & maintenance
  • Body and mind restoration
  • Seasonal detoxification
  • Metabolic syndrome
  • Healing muscle and joint pain
ayurvedic professional in reno

Ayurvedic Package - $180

Ayurvedic Consultation 60
60 min Mineral Bath*
60 min Signature Massage
During the consultation, a custom blend of aromatherapy can be designed to enhance the value of the following Mineral Bath and Signature Massage. A $212 value.

* 60 min Mineral Bath includes the use of Steam Room & Outdoor tub

Single Ayurveda Session Options

Initial Ayurveda Consultation

$90 – (1 hour)

Identify your ruling energy, or “dosha” as well as which energy is out of balance with a comprehensive personal assessment. You will gain a better understanding of Ayurveda and its philosophy on naturally achieving wellness. You will be given a plan to follow based on Ayurvedic principles along with your personalized mix of herbal supplements. Follow up sessions are advised to check progress towards your individualized wellness goals.

Follow-up Consultation

$75 – (45 minutes)

Review your previous plan and “check-in” with your results, make necessary adjustments to your current plan or devise a new plan. This is an open forum for our clients for new or general concerns and questions related to your wellness goals. An ideal session for those who are struggling with their plans or need major revision and extra motivational support.

Routine Follow-up Consultation

$60 – (30 minutes)

Get motivational support in order to achieve lasting results and review your progress. Sometimes we need someone to give us that extra inspiration to keep us on our wellness path. We can make adjustments to plans as necessary and as often as needed

Call us to book!

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is a sanskrit word meaning “science of life” and is a 5000 year old ancient healing art from India. It is an all natural approach to healing and is a system that takes into consideration that every individual is unique. It provides guidelines for nutrition, lifestyle, psychology, herbal formulations, massage therapies, gem healing, meditation and yoga practices.

Ayurveda practices that we are one with the natural world. As the seasons change, so do our bodies, therefore we need to know how to continually restore balance to our bodies using Ayurvedic principles. Our bodies have energy that fluctuates, and depending upon our lifestyle it can increase or decrease causing either positive or negative effects. These three energies are Vata, Pitta or Kapha and are called Dosha in Sanskrit.

Our Ayurvedic counselor will help you determine which Dosha is predominant and which Dosha is out of balance which can help the healing process going forward. The goal in Ayurveda is to get to the root of problems and not to simply focus on treating the symptoms.


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Lighthouse, Oil

£ 190£ 2,720

This amazing artwork available in verity custom sizes you can chose from list:

🖌 Conception and main idea: to wake up the miracle feelings of calmness with an abstract vision of sky and seascape by dissolving into imaging sounds of nature.
🖌 HANDMADE OIL painting on linen canvas, Unframed/Not stretched (stretching available in my shop separately and can be applied to this painting).
🖌 Gallery evaluation 3 200 – 4 800$.
🖌 Style: Modern, Abstract
🖌 The oil painting signed on the front with the year of creation on the backside.
🖌 Material: Professional oil paint, linen canvas, hand-oil-primed.
🖌 The painting comes with an EXTRA 2-3 inch border around for stretching or framing.
🖌 Certification of Authenticity attached
🖌 The original size of the artwork on photo is (90×140 cm) 35×55 inches.

🖌 If this original painting was sold, or you would like a different size, your painting will be created very similar in the same style, colors, you will receive the same quality and beauty of the painting as what you see from the pictures.
🖌 Because all of my paintings are handmade with various sizes available and often custom ordered, minor or subtle changes may occur with your painting. Your painting may not be exactly the same as the picture you made the order from. It will be nearly identical, but not exactly the same. What I can promise is the quality of the work, and it will be a beautiful painting as you expect.
🖌 In the process of creating a picture, I’ll show you photos with your painting. You’ll be able to express all your wishes, for example about colors and shades. I’ll make all the necessary changes. Only when you are completely satisfied with your picture, it will be sent to you!
🖌 Due to the main medium is oil, please, allow me to dispatch the painting at least 7-14 working days to avoid any damages caused undried paint.

🖌 Delivery time: You will receive the painting around 9-18 working days. I’ll send photos of the artwork to confirm with you before shipment, after your confirming I will dispatch as soon as possible. The order will take 4-8 days to finish the painting, 5-10 days to your home by express delivery.
🖌 Packing: Rolled and shipped in a solid tube. It can be delivered stretched, framed in a wooden box and ready to hang along with extra special services in my shop (find links below).

🖌 To protect painting well during international shipping, all paintings are rolled (Unframed/Not stretched) and shipped in a quality plastic/cardboard tube to avoid damages, it’s 100% safe and painting comes back to its original/flat state once you stretch it on a wooden base. You can decide to frame it or simply stretch it at any of your local framing shops, depends on your taste, it’s beautiful both way.
🖌 If you would like to receive your painting READY TO HANG with painted edges, you may order appropriate framing set in the shop by the link:

Canvas stretching set, wooden

🎨 I will be happy to answer any of your requests regarding commission artwork, so be free to contact me.

🎨 In case the artwork will not satisfy you, you have 14 days to send it back. All your payments to me will be payback in 3 working days I get returned the item.

🎨 Materials used:
🖌 Linen: handmade natural high-quality linen cloth with 4 layers of oil priming before painting.
🖌 Paint: Winsor & Newton Oil (made in France), Georgian (made in England).

Additional information

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Category Archives: featured

Haikufeltings in MacQ

A new journal, a new hybrid, and a new year!

Honored and thrilled beyond measure to have the opportunity to describe my journey from “Hairballs to Haiga” in a “craft essay,” with four of my felting haiga “haikufeltings” in the debut issue of the Journal MacQueen’s Quinterly, MacQ for short (see URLs below). Grateful to Clare MacQueen for highlighting haikufeltings in her introduction to the issue, giving this hybrid work a home among such a superb collection of writings.
Check it out! And Happy New Year!
Felting haiga
Introduction to the issue (scroll down)

Haibun Triptych

Reality Bites

In my teens I spent school holidays in the local library. From opening to closing time, the library was my home. In the sizzling Athenian summers, it was the only cool place to be. The silence in the reading room felt like a blessing. Sitting at my desk I listened. A page turned. Someone shifted in their chair. Someone sighed. Silence again. I revelled in the sounds of human presence in this magic emptiness. A paradise. Except one day, when a cicada started singing. Having found its way in, it perched on Borges’s “The Book of Sand.” Heads turned. There was a commotion. A reader screamed, “Get this thing out of here!” The librarian, arm raised, raced to the shelf to swat the culprit, but the insect was no longer there.

turning the page
I come across the truth …
midsummer darkness

And yet

The road twists and turns for miles ahead. The refugee caravan moves haltingly forward. Mothers carrying their babies; dazed children, old people, the young, all stagger towards a safer future. Crossing the Red Sea, walking through deserts, wading across the Suchiate River, the caravan camps at Calais, rests for a night on Lesvos, repopulates the Sicilian city of Sutera, rows across river Evros. Razor wire carves memories on children’s skin. A voice over the megaphone: “Achtung, Achtung!” Babies are born, grow teeth, learn to speak. It rains, it snows, it shines. New words enter dictionaries. Poems emerge from sleeping bags.

each spring
breaking through the soil . . .
the human heart

We carry on

We turn out the lights, fall asleep and emerge head first into the real world. Belief, disbelief, nuance, knowledge; science, art, even poetry we leave behind. We enter this eternal world without walls, where we have control over nothing, yet we are nothing less than the seed of the cosmos. Here is our true home: fluid, quiet, boundless.

In the morning, once the alarm clock’s trill drags us back into consciousness, we dress in soft flesh, teeth and nails, and catch the bus to work.

oak leaves …
planning to live past
one hundred

In Blue Fifth Review, The Blue Collection 9: Home

Image: ‘Boat’ by Maria Pierides

‘Of This World’ HSA Award, Judges’ Comments

So pleased to have received an Honourable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards! I announced the news earlier this year here. The Judges’ comments appeared in the latest issue of Frogpond, the Society’s Journal (41.3, Fall 2018, p. 119).
This is what they say:

In this fine haibun collection, Pierides addresses a wide variety of subject matter as she moves fluidly between tones—-philosophical, heart-wrenching, ironic, humorous. Some of the prose is conventional and some highly experimental; likewise the haiku (a frog jumps in / intertextuality / for beginners). No matter how short or light-hearted, none of the pieces feel slight, and the variety is delightful.

Many thanks to Judges Melissa Allen and Brad Bennett!

Of This World,haibun,

Available from Red Moon Press and Amazon.

‘Of This World,’ receives HSA Merit Book Award (books published 2017)

Delighted to announce that my book Of This World (Red Moon Press) was awarded a merit book honorable mention in the Haibun category by the Haiku Society of America!

HSA Merit Books Award

Heartfelt thanks to Michelle Elvy, Jim Kacian, Clare MacQueen and Johannes S. H. Bjerg for their help and support with bringing this book to life.

While waiting for the judges comments and public announcement by the Society, here is more information and praise for the book:

Of This World

Stella Pierides has cultivated a terse, idiosyncratic style in her haibun that is instantly recognizable, and as a consequence is one of the shining lights of this burgeoning genre. Of This World certainly is, but it also takes us out of the world at large and into private spaces we feel privileged to witness. A unique and satisfying read.

Red Moon Press
Amazon Europe
Amazon UK

I am grateful for the generous comments:

This is how it’s done! Stella Pierides — in a hushed voice — takes me through what it is to be human — and part of the human history from the roots of Western culture in Diogenes’ tub to the ‘modern’ human — with all the questions and doubts, the uncertainties that come from that.

— Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Writer

Of This World’s marvelous, emotionally resonant haibun are steeped in the grace of the garden, rooted in a physical reality so sensuous that you can smell the fragrance of baking bread, of olives and garlic, of lemon and magnolia blossoms — and yet they also spiral on the updraft of metaphor as poet Stella Pierides ‘put[s] our hearts in the shoes of the hummingbird.’

— Clare MacQueen, Editor-in-Chief, KYSO Flash

A treasure trove of language and image. Pierides walks through dark streets of history, through alleyways of memory – emerging in shiny, unexpected places. Compact, urgent and closely observant, these minute offerings will captivate readers of both poetry and short fiction. An enormously engaging collection.

— Michelle Elvy, Writer and Editor

Of This World
ISBN: 978-1-936848-80-5
Pages: 124
Size: 6″ x 9″
Binding: perfect softbound

In ‘Echoes 2’ 37/100 #100daysnewthings

Grateful to be included in ‘Echoes 2,’ the yearbook of the New Resonance Community and its 170 poets, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the New Resonance series!

37/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings

Echoes 2, Stella Pierides,

You can read the whole PDF in The Haiku Foundation Digital Library

or you may wish to order print copies of the book (for $8 a copy) from createspace

Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word

Great news! Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word, the book accompanying the eponymous forthcoming exhibition at King Street Gallery, Carmarthen, Wales, is now ready, hot off the press, and available to order!

Fruit Dove Press says:

We are pleased to announce the publication of Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word by Maria Pierides and Stella Pierides.

Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word presents 24 new paintings by Maria Pierides – and a response to each of these paintings in haiku, the shortest of poetic forms, by Stella Pierides.

From the back cover:

Stay awhile, travel the paintings, hear the echoes in between, and tell your own story too.

Alan Summers President, United Haiku and Tanka Society, co-founder, Call of the Page

I highly recommend this book. Take time to look carefully at the paintings whilst letting the words float in your consciousness.

Robert Lamoon, Visual Storyteller and Curator

From Welsh Country Magazine:

Maria Pierides’ work is inspired by her surrounding landscape, cultural identity, history, myth, time – and poetry. Maria’s visual abstractions are the outcome of conversations with the artist’s being in a particular place at a given time, shortcuts of her lived experience in colour, in texture, in paint. The collaboration with Stella Pierides, who responds to the paintings with haiku, adds layers of meaning that expand in ever widening circles and offer new and unexpected inroads to the paintings. Between image and word; between substance, imagination, and reflection; and between the past and the present, a world resonates, inviting us to engage with the whole of our being.

Printed on 30 pages of pearl photo paper

For copies please email
or fill out the Contact form on the Fruit Dove Press website:

UK: £18.00, incl. P&P
Europe: €20.00, incl. P&P
USA: $24.00, inl. P&P

Fruit Dove Press

ISBN 978-3-944155-06-7

‘The End of the 20th Century’

This afternoon, I visited the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. I went to see an exhibition juxtaposing what had been termed by the National Socialists ‘Degenerate Art” with their own notion of Art. It turned out to be interesting, though small-scale. For me, the best piece was work that would have been considered ‘degenerate’, but that was created later: Bacon’s triptych Crucifixion (1965).
I had seen this before, but never sat long enough in front of it to feel the enormity of its significance for modern art, as well as its power to see through and comment on the violence of totalitarian regimes and the destructive forces of the human psyche. Click here for a photo of this work.

Sharing here another piece of work: a photograph of Joseph Beuys’ installation The End of the 20th CenturyBeuys installation

Large pillars of basalt with circular cuts bored into them at one end, filled with smaller conical pieces. A puzzling, powerful piece of art, allowing the viewer to walk around it and explore perspectives. I saw toppled pillars, columns, bones, decay, in the installation. Given the state of the world today, with the violence and destruction reigning in so many war-torn countries, I wonder how Beuys would have depicted the end of the 21st century.

Alfred Wallis at Kettle’s Yard

Wallis,Kettle's Yard,haiku,painting,I’ve loved Alfred Wallis’s paintings for a long time, having encountered them only in books and postcards. Now, on Sunday January 11, 2015, I had the good fortune to see a number of them in real life, as part of Jim and Helen Ede’s collection, at Kettle’s Yard House, Cambridge. The compelling immediacy, directness and force of the paintings astonished me, and started me musing about the reasons for this appeal.

Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) was a fisherman from the age of nine, turned painter at nearly seventy. Born in Devonport, Wallis later moved to Penzance and St Ives. He only started painting after his wife died, at the suggestion of his neighbour, a grocer who gave him cardboard from his shop to paint on. Painting was his company, he said.

He was ‘discovered’ by Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood who arranged for his work to be included in London exhibitions and to become known in the art world. Wallis’s career took off, with some critics considering him to be the most original and inspiring British naive painter of the twentieth century. Wallis himself remained the person he’d always been, and kept living the simple life he had always lived by the sea. His work speaks of the sea and the boats, the lighthouses, the marine life he knew and remembered.

Jim Ede, quoted in ‘Kettle’s Yard and Its Artists’ (Kettle’s Yard Publications), noted that about Wallis:

“Though he is always drawing the same ships, the same houses, the same water, each of his paintings is a new experience… He does not set about to enclose his vision, his thought, into some preconceived scheme of colour or design… with Wallis design comes, with its subtly variant lines and spaces, not with experience of drawing or painting, but from closeness, almost identification with the thing he is drawing.”

Similarly, Ben Nicholson wrote that, to Wallis,

“paintings were never paintings, but actual events” —

and this it seems is what Wallis himself was attempting to do. He had a directness of approach; he eschewed perspective, and an object’s scale was often based on its relative importance to him in the painting – some of his fish, for instance, are larger than the fishing boats; some birds bigger than the tree branches on which they perch. Houses slide perilously down slopes, ready to fall into each other, and the waves appear the way he might have seen them as a teenager when on board ship to Newfoundland. Wallis’s perspective is emotional, is experiential, certainly not a draughtsman’s perspective.

ranunculous,Kettle's Yard,A viewer’s dip into the moment as experienced by the painter… a resonance with the thing depicted—which is ‘other’ because we are different, and, at the same time, ‘familiar’ because we are human, sharing the same world, the same reality—a willingness to share the painter’s focus of attention, through which selected objects (fish, birds, houses) are foregrounded and magnified… Are we not getting closer to the experience of haiku? Isn’t this a link to the interplay between Wallis’s style of painting and haiku? Instead of paint as the medium, in haiku, language expresses the experience. Without embellishment, linguistic trickery, and without, or only minimal punctuation, haiku in its brevity sets the stage for an experience by the reader resonating with the moment the writer captures.

Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge has the largest collection of Wallis’s paintings, thanks to Jim and Helen Ede, who over a period of ten years bought Wallis’s work. They donated their collection, together with their wonderful house, to Cambridge University.

You best explore all the works by Alfred Wallis at Kettle’s Yard, in the context of the collections in the house the Ede’s put lovingly together. Alternatively, if you are not able to visit, you can take a look at his work online

Well worth a real or virtual visit. Or both, as I am now doing.

Anselm Kiefer at the RA and Art Museum Walter

Inequality and Memory

The day before Anselm Kiefer was born, the house next door to his parents’ was completely destroyed. Only a sewing machine had remained intact. This event is linked, in several articles I came across, to his painter’s vision, his choice of subject, painting technique, and use of materials. Anselm Kiefer, Art Museum Walter,

It is as if he still breathes the dust he breathed in as a newborn; still lives among the rubble he creates in his painting/sculptures; still looks for the diverse, as if bomb-strewn, materials for the surfaces of his constructions.  There is a correspondence, an analogy, an equivalence between his original circumstances and his continued practice and vision in his work. A way of reconstructing memory, making it tangible; of keeping alive an event by reproducing its aftermath, expanding it in time. The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones would agree to this, as in his preview of the Royal Academy exhibition, he describes Kiefer’s show as

“an astonishing look at the awful burden of history”.

From the moment in time to expanding time, Kiefer’s objects do not stop this process of ‘remembering’ even when ‘finished’: the clay he uses shrinks, crumbles, and drops off; dried bits of material disintegrate, fall down, and become litter on the gallery floor to be returned to him. Even when the works don’t disintegrate, Kiefer ‘damages’ them deliberately, as if the state of being damaged, used, wounded, is the reality of painting. Here is where Kader Attia’s concern with re-appropriation of materials comes alive. Making/finding the rubble and turning it into a work of art, then turning this/letting this grow into rubble again, only to use the bits that come off in new work. Like the particles of the cosmos, on a microscopic level, Kiefer’s materials, and creations, belong together, morph, develop, die, and are reborn to a new form.

If this sounds benign, it is because Kiefer’s work reminds us to see it this way; it is a meditation on the ongoing, day to day processes of growth, decay, and regeneration. War, though, a main concern for Kiefer, and our time, is one of the most urgent and sudden, both violently disruptive and accelerative processes there are. When we linger in front of, or indeed around, a Kiefer piece, the terror and horror of the destruction of war; the awe of the immensity of scale come to mind: the holocaust (for Kiefer, perhaps the most personal reference); Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Congo, Gaza, Syria, Hiroshima… The beauty of the arrangements, of the depictions, and the terror of the depicted resonate with Rilke’s terrible angel which seems to be haunting Kiefer’s work.

Anselm Kiefer, Kunstmuseum Walter,Augsburg, So, inequality found in the polarities and the equivalences: Heaven and Earth; the moment and eternity; life and death; beauty and terror; growth and decay; memory and catastrophe. Claudia Pritchard, in The Independent, noting polarities in Kiefer’s work, quotes the claim of his being, arguably, ‘our greatest living artist’. Kiefer’s handling of the topic of memory as tangible and ever present will most probably ensure the continuing truth of this statement. Like the sunflower symbol he uses in his work, a head full of blackened seeds and beauty, Kiefer’s work contains the seeds of its own perpetuation. Pritchard quotes the exhibition curator, Kathleen Soriano,

“What I want people to take away from this show is not only the knowledge that he is a great painter, but also that he has great relevance.” Indeed Kiefer, she adds, is looking, like all of us, with great anxiety at today’s turbulent world. “He says you have to remember that history is cyclical.”

Recently, I revisited some of Anselm Kiefer’s work at the “Art Museum WalterKunstmuseum Walter at the “Glass Palace”, an industrial monument in Augsburg: Eleven ‘paintings’ and two sculptures on show. While they are not new — forty per cent of the Royal Academy work is said to have been created for the show — the Walter collection displays excellent work firmly rooted in time and memory, while remaining open to possibilities of interpretation (the photos included here are from the Art Museum Walter) .

A privately and expertly run gallery, Kunstmuseum Walter, is housed in the Glass Palace — a monument to the past of the textile industry — which aims to show history being alive in the present,

“[involving] a continual confrontation with the present. The concept of a living museum is an essential part of the TIM [Textile Industry Museum] programme. In the textile machine section, former textile workers demonstrate the machines with an authenticity not to be found elsewhere.”

Here too is an equivalence: the metaphor of the sewing machine from Anselm Kiefer’s past finds an echo in Germany’s textile industry surviving destruction. Interesting to note that, in this context, some have referred to Augsburg as the ‘Manchester of Germany’, echoing the transition from a crafts-/guild-based industry to one of machine-based mass production, including the exploitation, poverty, and social upheaval this involved. In this juxtaposition, Kiefer’s work, in bringing together the themes of inequality and memory, continues to weave anew the fabric of history.

If you can, visit the Art Museum Walter. Information about it here.

If you are not in Augsburg, or London, you need not worry. In Kent, there is an exhibition to console your artistic longings: my daughter Maria Pierides’ solo show at Creek Creative Studios in Faversham. 23 — 28 September 2014. Rush there, the Studios are open only till 4 pm on Sunday the 28th!

This post is part of a series of articles on the theme of Inequality, written for Blog Action Day 2014:

Malevich at Tate Modern

Phylida Barlow at Tate Britain

Kader Attia, Whitechapel Gallery

Frank Auerbach at Tate Britain

*Photos: Stella Pierides, Kunstmuseum Walter

Frank Auerbach at Tate Britain

Recently I visited the Frank Auerbach display of 15 paintings and 29 drawings at the Tate Britain, selected by his fellow painter and friend, Lucian Freud. The collection was offered by the Lucian Freud estate, and accepted by the British Government, in lieu of inheritance tax.

The group of paintings is of international artistic importance and a good ’teaser,’ anticipating a major Tate retrospective planned for 2015.

A fine group of works, including one of my favorites, Rebuilding the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square, 1962.

What a fantastic, bold show of both, imagination and brushwork, deep feeling and insightful depiction of psychologically layered scenes. The same subjects — Julia, his wife; Estella, his mistress; Jake, his son; Mornington Crescent — visited again and again, let the viewer get intimately acquainted with, as well as intrigued by them. Born in 1931 in Berlin, Auerbach came to England in 1939 and has lived and painted in London since. A London painter, and a painter of London, Auerbach has gone under the skin of the capital, making it the prime set of his work. If not Auerbach, then who else captures the energy and multifarious burdens carried by London’s inhabitants so realistically?

In an interview by Hannah Rothschild, Auerbach, from what has been his tiny home and studio since 1954, opens up about his work and life. Surprisingly, a sparse and spare studio and frugal life are juxtaposed to and contrasted with his many-layered, rich encrustations of paint in his work. The charcoal paintings are also ‘rich’ in depth and insight that feels both, inquiring and haunting. I left the room intrigued by his work, troubled, and at the same time, strangely satisfied by his profound achievement. Reading Rothschild’s interview later, I found this which rang true:

“So why does Auerbach paint the same face, the same view over and over again? Wouldn’t it be interesting to try a new landscape or a different nose? Auerbach shakes his head. ‘The closer one is to something, the more likely it is to be beautiful,’ he says. ‘The whole business of painting is very much to do with forgetting oneself and being able to act instinctively. I find myself simply more engaged when I know the people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on.’ Amid the frenzy of paint and energy it can be hard to spot the person in an Auerbach portrait. ‘Likeness is a very complicated business indeed,’ he says. ‘If something looks like a painting it does not look like an experience; if something looks like a portrait it doesn’t really look like a person’.”

Well, here’s food for thought.

peas in a pod —

thick brushwork layers

the light

The interview can be found here

In the Garden of Absence

In the Garden of Absence

by Stella Pierides

with an Afterword  by Michael Dylan Welch

Awarded the Haiku Society of America Mildred Kanterman Memorial Merit Book Awards 2013 (3rd place, for books published in 2012).

From the judges’ commentary in Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America:

“A charming collection… This intersection of the past and present is within all of us, and Pierides mines it well. A very satisfying read” (Vol. 37:1, p. 170).

In the Garden of Absence takes you on a journey echoing the author’s childhood. Yet it does so in the context of adult concerns, uncertainties, and anxieties—as well as pleasures. This book explores the existential fear of loneliness, the many facets of absence, and glimpses a path towards bearing absence and being creatively alone.From the back cover:

“Readers of any book of poetry can assume that each poem has substantial personal meaning for the writer. The poems in this collection go one step further, offering personal meaning to the reader. Stella Pierides pays attention in simple ways (and sometimes vast ways) to her surrounding world, noticing the warmth of a hen’s eggs on Mother’s Day, that only a dog makes eye contact on a crowded train, or in observing the tiny dark holes in a pin cushion as she extracts its pins.”

Michael Dylan Welch, from the Afterword, “Presence in Absence

Cover: from “Welsh Hill,” a painting by Maria Pierides Cover design: Maria Pierides and Rubin Eynon.

How to obtain a copy:

Print edition:

From and

The print edition can be ordered from your local bookshop: ISBN: 978-3-944155-00-5  (Germany) Fruit Dove Press, Paperback, 76 pages.

e-editions are now available from Smashwords

(Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others), PDF and kindle

Publication information: – ISBN: 9783944155012 e-book

– Published by Fruit Dove Press at Smashwords. Price: USD 5.99

Honours, Reviews, Essays:

Awarded third prize in the Haiku Society of America Mildred Kanterman Memorial Merit Book Awards 2013

Previous praise for the Book:

— “In Pierides’s meditations, imagination takes center stage, as do imaginary gardens, real toads, and their negative space… The result is a welcome debut in which the reader will find much to admire.”

In Briefly ReviewedFrogpond, 36-1, Spring 2013 (Click here, please scroll down).

— “This is an engaging collection…”

Modern Haiku 44.2, 2013 (in the “Briefly Noted” section).

— “A Poetic Gem… In the Garden of Absence is a lovely little book that sparkles with a quiet brilliance – every word shines.”

Debbie Strange on

— “In the Garden of Absence is a stunning book. From homely to somewhat obscure, Pierides touches a chord. Her poetry is the essence of haiku and an inspiration for many of us. In the Garden of Absence A must-read book of poetry.”

Sondra Byrnes on

–“… everything, from cover to cover, the cover image, the design, the graphical presentation, the empty space around the haiku, also the introduction… all very aesthetically (one more Greek word) appealing and pleasing! Thank you for taking me on this Magical Journey!”

Freddy Ben-Arroyo, Haifa, Israel*

–“… I really enjoy reading it, and already have some favorites…”

Annie Juhl, Svendborg, Denmark.

–“I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your book this afternoon while sipping on a chai latte. A few that I particularly like are: “between my ego and yours”, “the horses neighing”, “your vacant stare”, “moment of stillness” and “shooting stars”. The whole book is really lovely… the beautiful cover, the feel of the paper and the afterword by Michael Dylan Welch. Thank you for sharing your beautiful poems with me!”

Lauren Mayhew, Boston, USA

–“Stella Pierides pays attention in simple ways (and sometimes vast ways) to her surrounding world, noticing the warmth of a hen’s eggs on Mother’s Day, that only a dog makes eye contact on a crowded train, or in observing the tiny dark holes in a pin cushion as she extracts its pins.”

Michael Dylan Welch, Sammamish, Washington, USA

–“I cannot recommend ‘In the Garden of Absence‘ by Stella Pierides highly enough. A great Afterword too by Michael Dylan Welch. … The book is entrancing.”

Sheila Windsor, Worcester, UK

An informative, literary, and well-written essay, “Presence in Absence” by Michael Dylan Welch, first written in October 2012 and included in In the Garden of Absence as an afterword, can be read at Graceguts, by clicking here

Feeding the Doves

Feeding the Doves
31 Short and Very Short Stories, and Haibun

Greece has been in the headlines for a very long time. Since ancient times, her  philosophers, historians, mathematicians, shipbuilders, traders, and artisans have been making the news – and, indeed, history. So, amidst the country’s most difficult  years in recent times, many people believe that they know Greece and the Greeks.

Against this backdrop, the stories – short and very short – collected in “Feeding the  Doves” explore recurrent elements of the Greek psyche, tracing them back to challenges posed by the country’s history and environment. The widow, the old loner,  the refugee, the immigrant, the writer, the expatriate tell us their stories, touching  upon themes at the heart of Greek being, as well as our common humanity: love and l  loss, war, civil war, immigration and diaspora, emigration, poverty, religion, history,  and above all, the will to survive.

Cover Design:
Rob Ward, Freelance Animator

Fruit Dove Press
[The title story “Feeding the Doves” and the cover image were inspired by a photo taken by Robert Geiss, titled “Feeding Doves” and posted on his (sadly, no longer active) blog “Daily Athens Photo.”]

Happy Mindful Writing Day!

Here is my own  ‘smallstone’ of the day!

here is the now —

this smalls stone I hold

in my hand

This is the first ever Mindful Writing Day; it is organised by Kaspa & Fiona at their blog Writing Our Way Home.
Visit them to read what the other ‘stoners’ are writing, and better still, email them your own stone!

Paint the Town Red – 100 Days of Summer

Red Boat
Red Boat

I am taking part in the Project 100 Days of Summer 2012. In the words of the organizers:

“100 Days of Summer provides its members with the opportunity to share their creative work within the intense framework of providing one artistic submission per day for 100 days. Officially, we are beginning on July 5th and expect the program to run through October 15th or so.”

Steve Veilleux provides the prompts using “cards from a game called ‘The Origin of Expressions’. ” He encourages us to use the information in any way we like, “borrow ideas from other postings, or create literal or abstract interpretation of the expression”.

Expression #1 follows (week of July 1-7):
Paint the town red
Meaning: Spend a wild night out
Expression #2 (week of Jul 1-7)
“out like a light”
Meaning: Fast asleep

So, here we go! We Paint the Town Red! I will be posting mainly haiku/senryu and micropoems with the occasional photo haiku and photographs.

Language/Place #14: Locating the Senses

LangPlace #14 According to scientists, we humans have receptors for between nine and twenty one senses available to us. Imagine! Up to twenty one points of entry to the world! I say imagine, because we do not appear to be aware of most of those senses. Beyond the five well-known ones, who thinks of their sense of equilibrioception (the sense of balance) or proprioception (the sense of the body’s position in space) – unless they go wrong, of course. What is more interesting is the use we make of these ‘inputs’! The emotional, geographical, cultural, historical worlds we build around them.

In this issue, twenty one contributors explore the senses – the primary but also some of the secondary ones – and the ways these interact to create a sense of place, rootedness, memory, history, and cultural identity. Using the taste and feel of words, the images captured on camera and in paint, their own individual experiences and associations, the artists reflect on the senses in diverse, entertaining, fascinating, remarkable ways and create the world of the senses anew for us to savour and celebrate. It has been a pleasure to host their contributions to the theme of edition #14Locating the Senses in Language/Place!

 Alegria Imperial, originally from the Philippines, now writing from Vancouver (Canada), explores in her haibun, “the tiresome coldness of winter, the longing for spring and its blossoms to spark again, a self-consoling reflection on what eventually awaits yet for now ‘this longing/at moonrise/the only star’”. See here

Elizabeth Kate Switaj, writing from Ireland, in her ‘Memories of Place: Fruit’ considers the way the taste and sight of two different kinds of fruit, persimmons and mangoes, can bring back memories of place. A slight difference in the variety of fruit means a different experience of memory entirely… here

Kristina shares with us a walk among the ruins of Paestum, an incredibly peaceful place, and draws our attention to the neighboring museum and the ways it imbues the ruins with a sense of place and time. And after the sights and the history, pizza with mozzarella and courgette flowers! What a treat! Here

Penn Kemp, writing from London (Canada) says, the “two poems in ‘A Carnival of Senses’ celebrate the senses, celebrate language, celebrate place, in this case my bedroom”.  Here

Brigita Orel writes: “Senses are the inciting sparks of stories and poems and the places and times at which I became aware of them shape how I use them, maybe even how I interpret them.” In her essay, she reflects on the difficulties and challenges of writing in a foreign language rather than her mother tongue, and what it means to think, feel, or sense in a language other than your own. See here

Driving Rain

Maria Pierides, Kent (UK), explores her sense of landscape using a non-verbal medium, painting. In her blog, she speaks in the language of color, image, movement, shape, density, contrast… In Gallery 3, Time and Tide, she explores the seascapes and landscapes of Kent and their relationship to time, culture, and history. Here

Martin Willitts Jr, writing from upstate New York (USA), in his poem ‘Dear Diary’ interprets the story of Hansel and Gretel; and he knows a trap when he smells one! Here

Jean Morris (UK), in her haiku/haiga reflects on her experience: it “has been lingering as a taste and texture of
icy cold in my mouth since the moment I saw/wrote it, last month before the weather changed.” Here

 Steve Wing, a visual artist and writer living in Florida (USA), in his work reflects his appreciation for the extraordinary in ordinary days and places. In this contribution, he writes about the unique cultural texture that some fragrances like copal acquire. Here

Abha Iyengar, writing from New Delhi (India), in ‘The Senses: Diverse Renderings’ immerses herself in sensations – she has jasmine under her pillow – in poetry written for this theme. Here

Fiona Robyn, from the UK, whose ‘mission is to help people connect with the world through writing’ writes: “To prepare yourself for nourishment, you need to allow your eyes, ears, nose, fingers, mouth, head & heart to open.” A true feast in ‘Feed your Head’ Here

Jim Martin, writing from Munich (Germany), in his ‘The Visitors’ takes us on a fascinating and mysterious journey, beginning and ending in a Tuscan farmhouse. Here

Cathy Douglas Cathy Douglas, writing from the US, says:  “In my adopted home state of Wisconsin, winter is a big part of our image.  As the snow melts and the lakes thaw, we experience a brief, muddy identity crisis known as March”. Here

 Karyn Eisler, Vancouver (Canada), in her blog ‘Living ?s’ reconnects with her senses in Heviz. Where is Heviz? More important: what is Heviz for Karyn? Read Karyn’s post and see! Here

Michelle Elvy, writing from New Zealand, in ‘Close your Eyes’ explores the body and its history as a landscape, or rather an open book… Here

Dora, of ‘turns of endearment’, finds sanctuary in immersing herself in the experience of color… “an almost religious, aesthetic experience”. Here

sherry o'keefe

Sherry O’Keeffe writes: “The Shoshoni Indians had made the river valley their home long before I showed up on the gravel bars, looking for the sound of a crow. I learn from their language to see the world as never belonging to any one, not even to the crows”. Here

Nine’s memoir piece is filled with emotion, color, images. Looking back, now in New Zealand, she tells us how she said goodbye to Berlin. Even now, she says, “it’s still largely what I think of when I think about Berlin” in a blog entry, which “I wrote almost about year and a half ago” Here

Siddartha Beth Pierce contributes 6 poems, each covering sensitively and thoughtfully one of the six senses… “making angels on the ground”. Enjoy here

 Steve Wing and Dorothee Lang, in an e-logue that moves back 35.000 years in time, reflect on neolithic art and modern works that reach back in time to capture the past in film, in image, and in story: “A sense of place in time” Here

Stella Pierides, writing from Germany and UK, in her haibun ‘Other Worlds’ explores the sometimes hallucinatory qualities of the senses. Here

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this edition. I enjoyed reading your entries and getting to know your blogs – do let me know of any mistakes in your entries and I will try to correct them. I am going to be a more regular reader and contributor from now on! A huge thanks you to Dorothee Lang, too, the founder of this blog carnival, and the ever-present support and inspiration to the changing guest editors.

Edition #14, this edition, was put together by Stella Pierides. She is a poet and writer and blogs here. She tweets @stellapierides. She also has a facebook page and would like more friends! Apart from that, she looks forward to the next edition #15.

Edition #15 will be hosted by writer and poet Abha Iyengar, who lives in New Delhi (India) and blogs at and tweets at @abhaiyengar. The feature theme of Abha’s edition is “Encountering the Other in Language/Place“. Contributions are invited from writers, poets, and anyone with an interest in this topic. As always, we welcome a wide variety of posts. Guidelines here

Haiku from Lake Ammersee

where the heavens look

in the mirror

reflecting the skies

lake Ammersee forgets

looking in the mirror

the clouds long for home

the clouds lose their

golden light anoints

the world

I wrote this haiku responding to two prompts: the NaHaiWriMo extension prompt, “ mirror,” set by Susan Delphine Delaney; and the call for submissions by Walter Bjorkman. Susan is setting the prompts for July for the wonderful  facebook community of haiku poets, NaHaiWriMo. Walter is hosting the blog carnival Language/Place, on the theme of “Poetry of Place.” Submissions of links to Walter on this theme are open till the 20th of July.

The photograph of the lake Ammersee was taken one evening this summer.

Haiku/Tanka! #14 June 2011

Magnolia Exmouth

holding the flag high

they march taller than

the heady aroma

of summer magnolias

Today I read a post about appreciating and writing tanka in Red Dragonfly’s blog. It should have carried a health warning, something like, Read it at your peril: you will be tempted  to write tanka for the rest of your day(s); or, Read and risk tanka obsession! Something like that to warn its readers of adverse effects. My own first reaction was to write my daily haiku – which I write participating in the Facebook community’s NaHaiWriMo project extension – as my first ever tanka! The day’s prompt had been ‘flags.’ I got carried away, you see. Tongue in cheek, I posted it in the NaHaiWriMo facebook site for the good folks there to see! I only hope Melissa doesn’t see my first attempt!

If you like living dangerously though, do read the post about tanka. It is a tanka beginners’ dream: informative and with a number of good links. So, tanka? I’ll try to do that!

Must see

Maria Pierides

While working on my second novel, When the Colours Sing, I have been thinking about colour in painting and especially the use of colour by the Blue Rider painters. So it is with a lot of interest and pride that I visited my own daughter’s exhibition in the Deaf Cat Gallery in Rochester, Kent, and had the opportunity to start reflecting on her work.

Painting mainly abstract landscapes, Maria Pierides ( makes her paintings sing. They also draw the eye to areas, washes and masses of colour that suggest landscapes emerging from history, from maps, from physical and emotional references to the world.

Using “mixed media, building up and scraping back areas of paint to capture the atmosphere, mass, and light of the landscapes,” she is creating landscapes of the mind. Exploring aspects of the search for “home,” for “rootedness” in the moment, she works on the most basic and important areas of being.

Drawing on Kavafis’ poem ‘Ithaca,’ Maria investigates her own versions of Ithaca. If you can visit this exhibition do; let yourself experience her paintings by allowing the levels of beauty, meaning and lyricism in the pictures emerge in yourself. Don’t take my word for it: see for yourself!

The Deaf Cat is a spacious, warm and trendy exhibition space, with an excellent atmosphere, providing a much needed meeting platform for Kent artists and those interested in their work.

With both a real as well as a virtual space for local artists and art lovers to meet, it is fast becoming the place to be in Rochester and Kent.

The Deaf Cat was the winner in the category of Best Newcomer in the culture and Design Awards 2010, and received nominations in three other categories.

Maria’s work can be viewed in the The Deaf Cat daily, Monday to Sunday from 9.30 am to 5 pm.

Some of her work can also be viewed on her website here

ammersee december

The lake Ammersee puts in a pre-Christmas snow show; steam included!

In the foothills of the lower Alpine Mountains, the Ammersee, one of several glacial lakes, is a real jewel in all seasons — and a place to collect “stones.”

More pictures here

See also here


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Hip Stem Cell Therapy

3. Hip Stem Cell Procedures:
Surgeries on the hip are normally
– very traumatic
– followed by months of pain
– difficult to deal on a daily basis
– requires long-term pain management
Stem cell therapy patients are typically encouraged to walk the same day, and most experience little to no down time from the procedure.

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Classroom Resource: Job Application

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Candyce Burroughs and Ray Gutierrez (Washington Middle School in Olympia, Washington) created the attached Robotics Engineer Level I Job Application.  It is intended as a get-to-know you/yourself exercise for new students. It may also be given to students at the end of the course (as a Level II application) for students to document their growth from the class.

Attached File:


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Sterling Surgicare Welcomes Nancy Conley, CRNFA

Sterling Surgicare clinical staff

Nancy Corley, CRNFA, Sterling Surgicare (2020)

Linda, our longtime RNFA retired in March and we are very pleased to announce the addition of Nancy Conley, CRNFA, to our Sterling Surgicare staff.

Nancy is a highly experienced certified registered nurse first assistant to Dr. Adeyeri, amassing more than 25 years of specialized expertise in operating room nursing and nursing management.

She has been affiliated with major New Jersey teaching hospitals, including Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, specializing in Advanced Laparoscopy and Robotics.

She has extensive surgical expertise in bariatric medicine, gynecological oncology, urology and general surgery.

Nancy has three children and a growing roster of grandchildren. She loves gardening, cooking and travel.

As Sterling Surgicare’s CRNFA, she will serve as the primary coordinator of your care in the OR, overseeing all the pre- and post-op phases of  your operation, in partnership with Dr. Adeyeri, hospital-based anesthesiologists, clinical staff and our Holmdel and Old Bridge-based administrative team.

“My job is to clinically support Dr. Adeyeri before, during and after a surgical procedure is performed and to ensure that every step of every operation is flawless.”

Welcome to Sterling Surgicare Nancy!

Learn more about Sterling’s Surgical Services

Dr. Ayotunde Adeyeri is a leading board-certified bariatric, laparoscopic and general surgeon in New Jersey.

He is on staff at Hackensack Meridian Health hospitals located in central New Jersey.

For appointments with Dr. Adeyeri within 48 hours via telehealth during COVIID-19, call (732) 217-3897.

As of June 1, 2020, Sterling Surgicare is now performing all operations, including elective surgeries on a regular schedule.

Bariatric & Metabolic Surgery

Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery

General Surgery


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Steve Diamond Cycle Centre telephone 01896 758410

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A minor miracle

Dec. 2005

Tyler Tysdal showed a knack for working the business side of baseball early in life. As a teenager in North Platte, Neb., he hired neighborhood pals to tear through packages of bulk-order baseball cards, separating out marquee players. Normal kids of the era might have swapped the occasional Dale Murphy for a good-condition Mike Schmidt and called it a “trade.” Tysdal marked up the price for a 1984 George Brett, peddled it to a fan in Kansas City by mail-order, and called it “regional arbitrage.” When he was 14, he cleared $14,000. “Put myself through college,” Tysdal says.

No surprise, then, that Tysdal is back in the baseball business in a big way. As the president of Denver-based National Sports Services, Tysdal is leading an investment renaissance in the once-neglected professional sport of minor league baseball.

He may be onto something. Turns out that while you and I were overpaying for tickets, hot dogs and beer at Coors Field, the real action was going on in places like El Paso, Texas, and Asheville, N.C., where a new wave of owners and more sophisticated management practices are introducing an unfamiliar element to minor-league baseball: profit.

Yes, sports fans, behind all the goofy stunts and romanticized luster of minor league ball is a real business. Revenues have nearly doubled over the last 10 years to nearly $500 million across both independent and Major League Baseball-affiliated leagues. Nearly 100 new ballparks have been built since 1990. And some minor-league franchises are now valued as high as $20 million (although $5 million is a more typical number). With fan support growing and salaries in some leagues capped at a slim $120,000 per team, it’s possible to produce a solid operating profit even with ticket prices and sponsorship rates that are a fraction of what prevails in the big leagues, says Allen Fears, the former Denver Broncos chief financial officer who now holds the same title at NSS.

That’s certainly the hope of Tysdal and his partners at NSS, which operates as a sort of central casting agency for team owners. NSS supplies investment capital, marketing and sales help, facilities construction oversight and just about anything else an owner might need. The resources NSS provides makes for a far different outlook than in the old days, when independent team owners had to scrounge for everything from uniforms to somebody who could print up tickets.

“That’s really the idea behind it. Not only are they doing this for their own teams, but they offer all this expertise to owners who have been adrift for a long time,” says Rick Hanson, the founder of the Denver graphic design firm The Hanson Group, which produces logos and brand identity work for NSS and its teams.

Among NSS’s latest investments is a new team that will play its home games in Aurora, where NSS is overseeing the construction of a new 5,500-seat ballpark at Signature Park, just south of the Buckley Air Force Base. Owned by NSS in partnership with Newmont Mining Corp. finance executive Donald Karras, the park promises to serve up four general-admission tickets for around $20 when it takes the field in 2007. Karras, a switch-hitting shortstop during his youth in Sioux Falls, S.D., says he was smitten by the chance own a chunk of a local minor-league baseball enterprise, both because of his fondness for the game, and because he thinks it’s a worthy investment. “Minor league baseball is the best entertainment value in America,” Karras says.

The yet-unnamed team likely will be part of either the Central Baseball League or the Northern Baseball League, depending on how ongoing negotiations wind up. Both are independent leagues, meaning their teams aren’t affiliated with Major League Baseball franchises (and meaning their owners can set up shop in just about any market they choose).

NSS and Karras hope to double-down their local investment with a companion park in Jefferson County that would house a second metro-area team and offer up some scale economics in the form of shared ticket sales and overhead. The teams themselves will be composed of young athletes with solid baseball skills, a few of whom may catch they eye of MLB-affiliated farm clubs. (Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder J.D. Drew is a notable indy-league protégé.)  Most will make about $1,000 a month playing ball.

But the action on the field isn’t the only thing NSS is banking on to draw crowds. Minor-league teams increasingly are relying on what NSS calls “non-baseball ancillary entertainment” to lure more families and fans to the ballpark. From themed stunts like “’70s night” to mini-golf courses embedded into parks, the new-era minor-league team owner must behave like a modern-day Billy Rose: equal parts huckster and promoter.

“It’s like you’re going to a picnic,” says Fears, “and a baseball game breaks out.”

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events, Music, Notices, Uncategorized

Baroque Music Festival: 7 -12 May 2019

The word “Baroque” meaning “oddly shaped pearl” from the Portuguese word Barroco, was used to describe Western Art music composed from about 1600 to 1750. While a major portion of the music was classical it is now widely studied, performed and listened to.

The time has come to once again celebrate the Baroque Era with the annual Baroque Music Festival at St Francis. Please join us as we take you on a journey with a variety performances and talks by a variety of artists.

Click on the button below to download the full program.

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