Letter from a town of 50

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.19

3/30/2021

Unstuck

There is some good news: The giant container ship hopelessly stuck in the Suez Canal is finally moving again. All it took was the Moon. The 220,000-ton vessel carrying up to 20,000 containers has been described as being as long as a skyscraper and as tall. In one rendering it appears in the center of New York’s Central Park to give some idea of its size.

What is Evergreen about it is unclear.

Here you can see the 14 valiant tugboats struggling to move the behemoth. But the Full Moon finally did the trick with rising tides. I’m rather fond of the second photo in which one of those proud tugboats was posed like “The Little Tugboat That Could.” It is actually pulling the newly floated ship on its way.

If you look carefully toward the front of the ship on the right, you may see its actual name in small letters. EVER GIVEN. I have no idea what that means other than no craft has EVER GIVEN such a headache to 300 ships backed up behind it and the loss of billions of dollars to the Panama Canal folks. Thank you Moon!

I begin with this news because it is such a perfect, tangible metaphor for the whole forward motion of global and personal movement coming to a grinding standstill this past year. So many projects backed up behind it. Normal life stalled out. And now, albeit slowly, we are becoming unstuck.

Our less traveled waterway, the Blackfoot River, is also slowly resuming its flow, in a brownish, muddy sort of way. March is the season of mud, with a mixture of snow and rain. A hesitant Spring. One good sign that things are starting to unfreeze: The Blackfoot Angler is opening on weekends and offers this river report.

First river report for 2021: As of March 19 2021.
Warm temps, sun and rain
have started turning the Blackfoot River Spring Brown.
Running 1,200 cfs with normal under 1,000.
And Brown's Lake is still frozen.
As is Salmon Lake.

Winter is indeed slowly losing its grip and hopefully the pandemic is too. You can click here to see a short video taken by an NBC Montana drone of our Blackfoot Valley neighborhood now. Somewhere in there is Ovando.

In contrast to the biggest and slowest vessel on water, here is the highest speed, smaller airplane that has been designed for the future. Hold on to your hat. This is a real plan! A supersonic plane that will fly from New York to London in 3.5 hours. In the reverse direction, you would arrive before you started. Isn’t life confusing enough?
It brought to mind a famous limerick:

TThere was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

Boom Supersonic hopes a full-sized aircraft with room for 44 passengers can be in regular use by as early as 2029. The end goal is the development of its 199-foot-long Overture, its first commercial plane, which would have enough room to ferry between 68 and 88 passengers at any one time while flying at speeds literally double that of standard jets today. 997 mph.

If I HAD to choose between the two, I would travel by cargo ship.

While we are looking into the future, I would like to share with you a video I call the Robots and the Caveman. You will soon see why. Robots Sophia and Han engage in conversation. No ventriloquism or script. Just collossal absorptions of data that allow them to make intelligent responses. During the pauses, their "brains" are scanning the database to compose replies. The video was made in 2018. Sophia is now even more lifelike and is being reproduced in numbers, particularly for service industries where they can be programmed to suit the particular needs. Ben Goetzel, of Hanson Robotics, explains how they were created and the future of AI. If you would like to skip directly to the robot interaction, jump to 4:00 minutes.

Japan now has a robot news anchor who is amazingly lifelike. She was created through the modeling of a real person. While more realistic, she is not of the order of the Hanson robots who can increasingly “think” on their own and respond to a variety of people and situations. It's still uncanny.

Robots, however intelligent and life-like, could never deal with the pandemic with the intelligence, feeling and originality of humans. My hope is that they may challenge us to pay close attention to the things that make us uniquely human. The Guardian carried this recent headline:

A new obsession: the people who learned to play instruments during lockdown
Research from Yamaha shows 75% of Britons have turned to music to beat lockdown blues

A student nurse in Hemel Hempstead has taken up the mountain dulcimer and fits in music lessons from a teacher in the US, which she fits in with her Zoom classes during lockdown. Banjo, celtic harp, kalimba… Anything you can think of! Music definitely wins hands-down as the most comforting activity to watch or participate in through difficult and isolated times.

This gives me an opportunity to share a favorite video. The Ukulele Orchestra in the UK performing "Thank you for the Music" during lockdown from their homes. Notice how unique each one is in looks, voice, personality, humor, home decor... Not one can be mass produced like Sophia. Enjoy us! It's a fun one.

Something you might not have thought of as a pandemic rescue is the learning of a new language, especially if that language is Welsh! The Guardian describes this as another “obsession,” which is truly hard to believe! A language from a country that has towns with names like

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

It is a sure sign of Covid desperation that less than two weeks into lockdown in Wales, the National Centre for Learning Welsh launched new free Welsh classes, with 8,300 people signing up. Their target had been 100 learners and suddenly they had 1,300 pure novices “keen to start.” They had to find enough tutors to hold 89 classes.

There are now 1.3 million people learning worldwide after thousands of new users signed up for free classes during lockdown. Learning Welsh just for the fun of it?

This absolutely charmed me because my maternal grandfather was from Wales and I visited there in search of some family, which I found. I learned how to say “town,” “window,” “church” and “Hello” in the language, but that’s about it. Not to mention the difficult pronunciation.

If that warmed my (1/4) Welsh heart, another heart-stopping fact soon followed: Speculation that Stonehenge may have been “Second-hand” with the original circle being in (drumroll) Western Wales!

It has been known for some time that the large bluestones of Stonehenge came from a quarry in the Welsh Pressili Hills. Now it seems that the original monument may have been in Wales, dismantled for some reason and carried 175 miles east as part of a larger migration. 175 miles may not seem far, unless you are carrying gargantuan stones along with you. Researchers are still trying to figure out how the bluestones made the journey. Desperation may have driven some people to study Welsh, but what kind of desperation, or inspiration, drove those early Welsh people to undertake this incredible journey? The discovery was made by archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, who describes it in this short video.

If you are a lover of Stonehenge, or taking Welsh lessons, you may want to watch the full BBC documentary "Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed."

But it is Russian rather than Welsh that I will have to study to keep up with the young artists I have been following from that country, whose names I can't pronounce but whose talent leaves me breathless. I give you Agafia Korzun, age 7, who took 1st place at the VIII International Open Festival Competition of Young Performers. It is not just what she plays but how she plays it, as you will hear.

In the next short pieces, past and future come together in the present. Peggy Fly forwarded this very moving video to me, taken with an iPhone of a cliff village in China. (Not by Peggy!)

I found another amazing video that shows even more of the feats these villagers accomplished daily. What incredible physical condition they must be in! I don't think Sophia or Han could have done it, do you?

I almost wished I hadn't pressed on with my research into the fate of this village. Here is where they live today. Do you think the little boy is still happily making breakfast for his brother? It is hard to know. Life is certainly easier. Still, the peak of human fitness just declined a notch.

Perhaps the fitness of an entire human community is not as it was, but individuals continue to break records in ways that boggle the mind. Consider Nathan Chen, a winner of the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships. It is not only the physical feats that are impressive but the sheer grace and beauty of his performance.

Now for a bit of humor, I take you back to an early sketch with John Cleese in "The Bookshop." This one is dedicated to those good friends of books Anne Mery, JJ Wilson and Paula Hammett.

If you are an animal lover, you might enjoy this documentary on unusual animal relationships. You can watch as little or as much of it as you like, without losing the idea. But it is well done and interesting. It ends with a particularly unlikely relationship between a kudu and a giraffe. I kid you not.

For me, the ultimate wondrous relationship occurs, in rare moments, between animals and humans. There is nothing artificial or trained about this. It just happens and represents something special. In this clip, watch a beluga whale entranced by a violin.

I end on a quiet note, with a most extraordinary presence: a blue whale, rarely seen in these waters off San Diego or seen at all by humans. Almost 100 feet long (30 meters) and weighing nearly 200 tons (175 tonnes), it is the largest animal ever known to have existed. When I first saw this video, I was sure it had been "photoshopped." It didn't seem possible. But when I investigated the drone videographer, Domenic Biagini, I saw that it was indeed real. He spent the pandemic year of 2020 dedicated to making a full length documentary, premiered as a Christmas gift on December 25th to all of us. I highly recommend A Year in My Life. As a counterpoint to the opening feature on Evergreen, a lifeless leviathan of the waters, I close with this living leviathan that offered a life-changing experience to those who saw him and helped them become "unstuck" in the year of Covid.

Stay well,
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.18

2/28/2021

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While Bears Sleep

Both bears and hermits hibernate in winter. I pretty much go inside in November and come out in April. This year winter came early, died down, and then roared back in the monster storm that swept much of the country. Texas suffered bitterly and there were record temps in rare places. Nobody mentions Montana’s stats because, well, it’s just expected here. Mostly what I heard was, “Thank goodness. We really needed the snow.” But this much?

Bonnie Spence took this photo of the Lolo Pass Visitors’ Lodge on February 25th. If you like frosting, this would make a great gingerbread house.

Kathy Schoendoerfer of the Blackfoot Angler is my go-to person for what’s going on in the hinterland and the river. She reported on February 13th that south of Ovando, next to the Blackfoot River, it was 26 below zero. There were wind weather advisories during that period for wind chill temperatures up to -55 in the valley. She posted a brief video clip of the Blackfoot River beneath a quote from a poem by Lillian Smith. (This is just a still photo from that. Visit her website linked above for more.)

A frozen river is a quiet thing,
But underneath, change is taking place.
~ Lillian Smith

Bears may be asleep but the town is wide awake! Trixi’s Antler Saloon is fully open now (10 to 8) and has been serving up take-and-bake pizzas on the weekends. I’m not sure that’s continuing but you can check at 406-793-5611.

Colleen at the Stray Bullet is doing her take-out casseroles, clam chowders and other goodies. She usually posts a menu at the beginning of the week on the Stray Bullet Facebook page.

The Blackfoot Store has generously stayed open through thick and thin and it’s thicker with folks these days. It has always been a town hub. A warm space to gather for a cup of coffee and the latest local news, while stocking up on everything from Hutterite chickens to fruits and vegetables and most anything else you might need. This is no small task during the pandemic and winter snows. The Ovando Inn has even stayed busy with hardy visitors.

Montana has certainly been luckier than other places, which have experienced many losses during the pandemic. Sadly, in the UK our old friend Capt. Tom has passed away from Covid at 100. But NOT so sad really. You would have to call his life a COVID success story, walking his 100 laps with his walker in his garden to raise money for healthcare workers during the pandemic. At 98 years old, he could never have expected the turn his life would take or that he would be knighted by the Queen and have a Hurricane and Spitfire fly over for his 100th. In the end, he raised several million pounds. I’m sure he died with a smile on his face! If you missed my earlier notes on him, you can find his story to date here. Capt. Tom Moore passes at 100

Most Covid stories are not like Sir Tom’s. In addition to the loss of loved ones, so many people have suffered the loneliness of isolation. Here is an animated short created to inspire people who have been afflicted with this during the shutdowns.

Here is a Good News check-in on November’s newborn giant panda at the Washington Zoo, who might better have been named the White Worm during his debut appearance. It’s a wonder his mother could find him. Well he has filled out in these months and looks as a panda cub should.

In the category of Oldies but Goodies, I love looking back at unusual pairings of past stars. This one is bound to lift your spirits and set your foot to tapping. Carol Burnett teams up with Dolly Parton in a lively rendition of “No One Picks Like A Nashville Picker Picks,” supposedly composed by Carol. They look like a couple of teenagers! It really is fun.

Just to keep your feet a'tapping, here is an offering from a clog dancing event; folks doing what they love at Hillbilly Dirty Dancing by Scotty Bilz National Clogging Convention 2013.

Now here is a considerable variation on that theme—dirty dancing Chinese style by farmers in their fields, who find a way to overcome Pandemic Depression. Pretty amazing.

Even more amazing was the big sky event this month: the landing of Perseverance on Mars. It is like sending your Honda Civic 293 million miles (471 million kilometers) on a seven month voyage into space at 24,600 miles per hour (39,000 kmph). Then it has to decelerate to 12,500 mph (20,000 kmph)—that’s 15 minutes from London to New York—to begin its descent; then to land almost precisely in just the right zone where the rocky surface won’t bring it to an untimely end. Inside your Honda is the helicopter, Ingenuity, that will make the first space flight on another planet. It weighs less than a bag of sugar and has a 4 foot wing-span. My oh my!

Here is a very neat reconstruction from the Imax documentary "Roving Mars" from 2006. The mission is the same but the latest rover is larger with more technical equipment on board to gather scientific data.

If you would like to see the current rover, Perseverance, in real time, here is the link to NASA's real-time tracker.

This event brought to mind the first cosmic show in which Mars played a leading role and eyes around the world were on the red planet. You have to remember that for centuries Mars was at the center of popular lore, from myth to science fiction. Ray Bradbury became famous for his Martian Chronicles and Arthur C. Clarke became a household name for novels about Mars. In 1971, the unthinkable was about to happen: an actual space vehicle was about to take off to the actual planet. Stop and think what a shocker that was for Earthlings whose minds had been filled with their own stories and imaginings about the planet. I remember eagerly tuning in with my family to a program that aired on November 12, 1971 called "Mars and the Mind of Man," the day before NASA's Mariner 9 mission reached Mars and became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and others were gathered to discuss the implications of Mariner's arrival.

To give you a feel for this momentous event, here is Ray Bradbury reading that evening from a poem he had written in honor of the occasion.

Now here is Arthur C. Clarke, 7 years earlier in 1964, making his own predictions about the future. You will be surprised by his prescience.

Closer to Earth, our February skies 60 years later have had some notable moments of their own. There is the American Airlines pilot who was heard asking an air traffic controller, "Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us. I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast. It went right over the top of us." American Airlines confirmed the transmission but just said "Go talk to the FBI." Have you ever tried to go talk to the FBI? About a UFO?

A United Airlines pilot had a more serious problem when an engine caught fire and the cowling came off. Miraculously, no one on the ground was hurt by the falling debris.

On the lighter side of events in the Friendly (?) Skies, I found an old video of Bob Newhart's skit as an air traffic controller. Seemed a timely moment to share it.

Now home again, home again to our own time and place in 2021. Another of the positive outcomes of the devastating pandemic is that famous and talented people who have been denied their opportunities to perform for huge audiences in packed venues for sizeable fees are performing for us from their homes for free.

One of those is Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose regular Songs from Home offers a nourishing musical treat. Here is her song for the New Year from her farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This one's for my brother Christopher, who first introduced me to her years back.

Now that we have landed back on terra firma, it is good to be reminded of how astonishingly beautiful we are next to the red, bleak and sandy spaces where Perseverance perseveres. Who better to do this for us than Louie Schwartzberg with his eye and lens for exquisite natural things.

As always, I like to end on a quiet note, so here is another extraordinary musical collage of voices--17,572 singers from 129 countries--gathered virtually under the direction of Eric Whitacre to sing his composition Sing Gently. It opens the heart like a flower.

Happy landings and stay well,
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.17

1/31/2021

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The Long Winter's Night

2021 arrived like Carl Sandburg’s fog, on little cat feet. The one exception was under Mt. Fuji in Japan, where fireworks burst over deserted streets. They were bought for the cancelled 2020 Summer Olympics and had to be used for safety reasons. I’m sure they brought joy to people watching from their windows and yards. If you are missing the fireworks, enjoy these. It is never to late to wish for a Happier New Year. Thank you to Clara in Pasadena for sharing it.

A clever Italian has summarized our 2020 year with a cartoon short that you will appreciate, even if you don't know Italian, because the images tell the story with humor in "Good-bye 2020."

On the drive to Missoula, I marvel at the sight of ice fishermen keeping their cold vigils over poles fixed over dark holes in the ice. Sometimes they have tents and sometimes not.

I discovered that there are colder spots than Montana for winter. The place that gets the award for “coldest town” is in Siberia. No surprise there. Here an elderly man becomes the fish! A winter dip, where temps can drop to -74 (-59C) is considered important for one’s health. Next to that, what happens if you put your laundry out to dry!

Human resourcefulness and creativity can flourish even in these frigid temperatures. You will be astonished by the sights of the Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival in Harbin China, where a virtual ice town is created on 200 acres.

My one last winter offering, also from Russia, is a beautiful piece by the Igor Moiseyev Ballet called Snowstorm in which humans become the storm itself.

Closer to home, dance groups continue to struggle during the Covid crisis. Confined to their homes, 32 professional ballet dancers from 14 countries perform music from Swan Lake together to raise money for Covid relief. Amazing to watch. This one is for Ari and Judy in South Carolina, who have conducted their own ballet classes online, and for Matilda in Ovando, who loves to dance. Here is "Swans for Relief."

Then there is the spontaneous pas de deux between little Avlina and Ian the postman. Even when stuck indoors, surprising things can happen. This is brief but delightful.

Now to what I call “unlikely instrumentals.” Here is a guitar duo on a single guitar. Yes, that’s Two people. One guitar. It must be a very close relationship!

How to top that? Try a Cello Quartet with One cello and Four cellists. You have to see this to believe it. It's fun. I thank my Comadre for this from Mexico City.

This one from Gary Aitken features an unlikely instrument at Carnegie Hall. You are used to hearing it around a campfire, but here virtuoso harmonica player Buddy Greene plays Bach!

Last but not least of our unusual instrumentals is a remarkable story that I heard about from a couple on an airport shuttle. It's called The Landfill-Harmonic or The Recycled Orchestra and yes, the instruments come from a landfill in Paraguay where the people are poor in circumstances, but rich in what they do with them. It is 13, not 60 minutes (the program) and not to be missed.

And there are still the acts of generosity, like the young boy in Iowa, age 12, who raised thousands of dollars for his community by making and selling nearly 115 baseball bats out of wood brought down by the August Great Derecho storm. Or one man paying for the car behind him in a Dairy Queen drive-thru that resulted in over 900 cars also taking part in the pay-it- forward chain, which lasted two and a half days, to the tune of $10,000.

Speaking of cars, here is a light moment at a gas station that is sure to bring a smile, as it did to the drivers of several cars! I call it Gas Station Karaoke.

This next offering is for those of you who have, or are, a young person studying science or having an interest in becoming a scientist. Or for those (like me) who simply have a layman’s interest. Here is one of America’s greatest physicists and winner of the Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman, speaking about “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” His interview with Christopher Sykes appeared on Nova and it was nominated for an Emmy. Excerpts from those interviews appear in this TED talk introduced by his daughter and Christopher Sykes. I found it delightful.

For those of you who admired Our Best Friends doing yoga poses with their owners and wondered how you could get your own Best Friend to do yoga with you, here is a video on "How to Teach Yoga to Your Dogs." Good luck!

The only thing I will miss post-Covid are the lovely musical collages of people performing from their homes. I have loved taking in those individual faces and their living rooms, dens, bedrooms... At once so public and so intimate! So here is the Stay at Home Choir with The King's Singers performing "And So It Goes."

I end with a quiet message I received from a friend on January 1st that is good for the whole year ahead. May it indeed be a better year for us all.

Happy New Year wherever you are and please stay well.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.16

12/6/2020

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Deck the Halls

December 6, 2020

I know you have been waiting to hear (unless you are on the Town Crier List) who won the scarecrow contest. So here they are.

Folks came into town on Saturday after Thanksgiving bearing boughs cut from their evergreen trees to deck the halls, or in this case porch railings. Yards of wide red ribbon were deftly used to weave them into garlands that graced the Blackfoot Store, the Museum and the Stray Bullet porches.

Christmas lights were strung across the town that make us colorful at night. And now I need to solve a mystery that has no doubt plagued anyone who drives through town at night. What on earth do I have in my window? I realize that it is hard to make that out at a distance, but it is a Christmas elk with festooned horns. Seemed just right for the neighborhood and the local elk might enjoy it too. Here it is close up, so you know what you are seeing.

Missoula has an osprey nest webcam that I love to check in on periodically. There are some excellent photographers who follow these birds and others. I just saw two amazing photographs of a great horned owl and owlet. These photos were taken recently near Greenough Park by Louis Matteau.

One day, to my porch feeder, came three lovely goldfinches in their winter garb. I keep hoping they will return but the house sparrows are much higher in the pecking order and in sheer numbers. Still, I was happy to see them, flickering through the snow. Perhaps they’ve left for Miami.

I hear the sounds of axe and saw and I know that many Ovando folks are at the unending task of getting in more wood for the cold cold nights. A warm fire is the antidote and consolation for our fierce winters. So here is a treat in honor of this season’s ritual work. Pete Seeger singing “Keep the Flame Alive” with Lorre Wyatt.

I have been following Nora and Isaac, the young brother and sister who make music together with their father in Quimper, France. Around Thanksgiving, I found little Nora singing one of my favorite Spanish songs, Gracias a la Vida, Thankyou for Life, which was perfect for the season. The words were taught to me by my dear friend Virginia Igonda, while we were waiting in a long line to cross the border at Tijuana. I was able to sing it with her at the end of her life in Ecuador. It’s surprising to hear it with the tender young voice of a child. The song was made famous by Mercedes Sosa, who brought a very different, mature voice to it.

First, here is Nora, singing beside her father in the first bloom of her life.

(English translation of first, second and last stanzas)

Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me two bright stars, that when opened,
Perfectly show me both black and white
And high in the sky, the starry background,
And within the crowd the man that I love.

Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me hearing that, in all its breadth
Records - night and day -crickets and canaries,
Hammers, turbines, bricks and showers,
And the tender voice of my beloved.
…
Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me laughter as well as tears.
That I might know happiness from pain -
The two ingredients of my song,
As well as your song, that is mine too,
And the song of all, that is my own singing.

Now the song from two greats of North and South: Mercedes Sosa and Joan Baez. It’s an electric performance that really projects the spirit of the song. I offer this in memory of my Argentine friend, who taught me so much.

Speaking of best friends, here is a most unusual feline. Calling this “A Cat Plays Like Beethoven” is really a stretch, but you have to admire little Nora’s unique enthusiasm for the instrument.

Almost as unlikely as a cat playing Beethoven is a five-year-old playing Chopin. Jonah Ho certainly brings something entirely different to the instrument than Nora, which even by human standards is extraordinary. I’ve always thought of Fantasy Impromptu as a piece for virtuosos. My mistake.

But to be honest, the young musician who has most impressed me in recent months is Alexander Malofeev, playing one of my all-time favorite works with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic: Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. It’s not just the virtuosity that is impressive. It is the maturity and depth of feeling with which he plays it. You wouldn’t expect this of a 15 year old. I’ve watched this several times and I found myself taking in the special quality of the conductor, Kristjan Järvi, and the musicians. The conductor seems to communicate with each one in a special way, just as he does with the soloist. You can easily enjoy just the first movement, though you might be seduced into listening to the end as I was. I hope you have good speakers!

Now literally from the sublime to the ridiculous, I end this sequence with the piano on a crashing final note, with apologies to Steinway. Here are Harvey Corman and Tim Conway in Dueling Pianos. Pandemics occasionally require the ridiculous. So here it is.

An important event in the art world, during the advance of the pandemic and the closures of galleries, is a virtual exhibit from the National Gallery in London. The subject is a celebrated woman painter of the 17th century whose celebrity, like that of many women of those and other times, has not survived into the present. You will be amazed at the work of Artemisia Gentileschi. “In 17th-century Europe, at a time when women artists were not easily accepted, Artemisia was exceptional. She challenged conventions and defied expectations to become a successful artist and one of the greatest storytellers of her time.” On their website, you can see a brief sample of her work and a short trailer about the exhibit. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/artemisia

If you are feeling a little flush, you might take a virtual tour of Artemisia’s exhibit. It will cost a little over $10 but is said by one art reviewer to be worth it! There is also a free series of videos that they produced on the restoration process for their most recent acquisition, a self-portrait. I imagine one of these 14 videos will do, unless you are planning to clean up some of your own. https://youtu.be/zt7d5Nb5GdE

For those who miss visiting galleries and museums, there is another interesting online exhibit you can attend here at home for free at the Smithsonian Art Museum. "Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature and Culture."

In the words of Alexandra the Scholarly Skater, “Its subject is Prussian naturalist and polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who is definitely the most important scientific figure most of us have never heard of. His extensive exploration, research, and published writing, combined with his then-groundbreaking ideas about the interconnectedness of nature, made him one of the most influential figures of his time.”

If you are in the mood to digest a delicious website devoted to the arts and reviewing current exhibits, I highly recommend the Scholarly Skater site.

In a time when galleries remain empty of visitors and musicians have no live audiences, French cellist Camille Thomas plays in locked down galleries, including the Louvre. Lovely.

I thank Barbara Cross for sending this lovely photograph of three children from a South African tribe. The story goes that an anthropologist invited the children to play a game in which he placed a basket of fruit near a tree and announced that "The one of you who reaches the tree first will be rewarded with all of the sweet fruits." When he signaled to start the race, the children locked their hands tightly and ran together, and then they all sat together and enjoyed the delicious fruit. The astonished anthropologist asked the children why they all ran together, because each of them could enjoy the fruit for himself. To which the children replied: "Obonato." Is it possible for one to be happy if everyone else is sad? "Obonato" in their language means: "I exist because we exist."

While we are mostly shut down by Covid in December, the sky overhead and the astronomers who watch it will be having a lively time.

The first event, which we won’t see (except for those in South America) is a total solar eclipse on Monday, Dec, 14—best in southern Chile and Argentina. But don’t worry. North America is having one come up in 2024. Be patient. You can watch this one on the internet. It can count as an astronomy lesson for home school students.

On Dec. 16th, you will have a lovely view in the southwest after sunset. The crescent Moon sits just beneath Jupiter and Saturn, coming very close before their big event on the 21st.

On December 21st, Winter Solstice, comes the “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn. Not since 1623 has there been such a conjunction this close. But not since 1226 has it been this observable. This conjunction was important in the ancient world as marking the beginning of a new era. Many today believe that the Star of Bethlehem was in fact Saturn and Jupiter shining brightly as one. While we will miss the festive annual Christmas gatherings, this sight on the winter solstice is something to celebrate. But you have to look quickly to the southwest, immediately after sunset, because it will quickly disappear below the horizon.

Finally, there is something else that offers warmth and comfort in winter: imagination. This is another human gift that I like to celebrate and share for long nights or slippery days. I close with this quiet, short animation that will literally carry you off to far places. Soar.

Stay warm and be well,

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.15

10/24/2020

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October?

Has anybody here seen October? It seems to have gotten lost along the way! December showed up in its place with temps plunging to -15F (-26C) as I write. First snow storm was on the 17th and another just blew through. If you don't believe me, behold my porch, birdfeeder and stairs. But don't worry: Howie Fly has just been by to shovel me out!

Winter may be associated with things going stiff and dormant, but not so in Ovando. In fact just when I thought October was off the calendar, I got our Town Crier’s news. (Kathy Schoendoerfer) Terry Sheppard got creative and thought up the perfect thing. Thanks Terry!

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Time for some frivolous fun!
Because isn't it about time to have some?
and we can keep it all friendly with distancing and masks.

Help us close out 2020 with more fun than a human should be allowed to have!

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So Ovando is alive and well and, after Thanksgiving, the community will gather to decorate the town and put up the lights. We look great in winter! Come see us.

The Alpine Artisans Tour fortunately came in the thin sliver of autumnal October that I mentioned last time. It was not just at the Brand Bar Museum in Ovando but a tour that stretched across the valley. A reminder that the arts are also alive and well, in spite of the pandemic.

8 stops along the tour

#1: Handmade in Seeley Lake
#2: Grizzly Claw Trading Co
#3: Gallery 83 in Seeley Lake
#4: Willow Creek Studio
#5: Swanwoods with Martha and Jerry Swanson off Woodworth Road
#6: Brand Bar Museum downtown Ovando with
- Artoutwest - with Diane Whitehead
- Cabin Fever Originals - wit Angela Williams
#7: Lincoln Art Haus Co-op
#8: Blackfoot Pathways in Lincoln

Arts staying alive during the pandemic is a serious challenge worldwide. We have seen orchestras offer remarkable concerts, zooming from their living rooms, but these don't keep the rent or the salaries or production costs paid; the same problems facing small businesses everywhere. One resourceful solution was found by the Atlanta Opera company. They have a beautiful performing arts center for their productions but not a Covid-safe place. What is a premier company like this to do?

Atlanta Performing Arts Center

The answer they came up with is "a tent series with of-the-moment staging." The setting was perfect for a performance of the opera, Pagliacchi, about a clown and his troupe.

The feat of our Capt. Tom Moore, who at age 99 walked one-hundred laps across his back yard with his walker to raise money (40 million pounds!) for first-responders, continues to ripple out in its effect. He received 125,000 cards for his 100th birthday. ("Now children, I know you are bored, but why don't you make a card for that nice man.") Presumably 98 year-old Zinaida Korneva of St. Petersburg has knit him his socks, while she recounts war stories on YouTube to raise money for the health workers.

Well Tom's record has been topped. Tired of being stuck inside during the shut-down, 104-year old Ruth Saunders, from Newbury in Berkshire, said to her son in North Wales, “I’m fed up with this, do you think it would be all right if I went out and had a little walk?” "Certainly," he said. "You can do a little more each day." So she took hold of her walker and set out. No doubt inspired by her countryman Sir Tom, and urged on by her daughter to go for the marathon distance of 26.2 miles, she and her walker have done 130 laps around her house to raise money for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance. Ah the choices we can make and feats we humans are capable of if we put our mind to it. Bravo Ruth! Click to read more and see the video.

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If you look up in the sky at Mars, now visible in the east to southeastern sky at evening, you can imagine that somewhere in the space between us, a triangular rock roughly the size of the empire state building is orbiting the sun every 1.2 years. That is Comet Bennu, named by a 9-year-old boy for an ancient Egyptian avian deity, in keeping with its visiting spacecraft, Osiris Rex. Scientists speculate that carbon-rich Bennu might have seeded Earth with the building blocks for life. It is remarkable that a small spacecraft launched in 2016 to do reconnaissance of Bennu was able to make a momentary touch-down to take a sample of dirt and rock to bring back to Earth. The work has been described as a labor of love for researchers around the globe who invested years of their lives into the historic mission. “Transcendental,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator of the mission, said moments later. “I mean, I can’t believe we actually pulled this off.” So don’t get the mistaken impression that the world has shrunk to ballot boxes and campaign ads. There is still a lot of exciting stuff going on even 200,000,000 miles away.

But plenty of great feats and labors of love go on closer to home. Consider this Chinese couple and the hours-upon-hair-raising-hours they spent in perfecting this acrobatic dance for World's Got Talent. And pity their poor son, standing backstage, holding his breath.

As Covid continues to constrain us, you may find yourself stuck at home again with your mask in the laundry and nothing to do. The idea of standing on point on your partner's head, or being the head that is stood upon, may not appeal, but there is still a form of dancing that you might find simple, relaxing and amusing. I thank Bonnie Spence for this, imported from someone in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Try finger dancing! Or just watch this one and tap your own to the rhythm. It's fun! Watch dancing fingers .

Then there is the world of nature around us to bring us joy with its beauty and endless inspiration for artists. Peggy Fly sent on this lovely piece on Birds in Art. You can feel the love, attention and patience that goes into the pains-taking rendering of each feather and feature. This is exquisite and not to be missed.

From the two-footed to the four-footed, this is for my friend Ari Dickinson. Meet Nora, the polar bear, in "Nora's Second Chance."

"Animal communication - Understanding how animals think and feel" is a beautiful documentary, filmed in France, that explores the question of emotion in animals through an animal communicator who picks up images from their minds and claims to understand them. Whether you believe her or not, you will love the landscape, the people and the animals. If you are an animal lover, and have communicated with one of your own, don't miss it.

Now relationships with four-footed creatures like dogs, cats and horses may not be so unusual. But kinship with invertebrates (i.e. without a spinal column), particularly a marine invertebrate? How likely is that? I have been following Octopus studies and clever creatures like Athena, a lab octopus featured in Sy Montgomery's book The Soul of an Octopus introduced to me by Anthony Hawkesworth. What a lot we have to learn about our fellow creatures! I waited eagerly for the forthcoming documentary on Netflix by a brilliant South African film-maker, Craig Foster. "My Octopus Teacher," the moving story of his relationship with an octopus in the wild, did not disappoint. The underwater photography is stunning. Here is the trailer.

Now a bit of humor from the TV archives. This one's for Rose Tyson: Sid Caesar as the Professor of Archaeology.

I end with an ode to the October that isn't, yet may still be remembered in memory and looked forward to in hope. Warm, yellow October with coronavirus gone. Here is a peaceful version of the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken."

Please take care and be well.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.14

10/9/2020

4 Comments

Autumn Yellow

Summer has come and gone, the nights are longer and there is a chill in the air. The yellowing larch trees carry the distinct message of autumn in Montana. Our artists will be gathering tomorrow to share their work at the Brand Bar Museum. I'm sorry that I discovered too late that the format I created for the artists in my last Letter on the computer didn't survive on smart phones, so the images of artists' work floated off on their own. To remedy that, I spent a day learning new tricks to make it work. Please see the new version here by scrolling down to the artists on that page. I am grateful to the Ovando folks who gave me names of other favorite artists, which I have added there: LaVonne Jorgenson's pottery and Andrea Morgan's Rooster Arts.

For the Equinox, I listened to Paul Winter’s Autumn Equinox concert from his barn in Northwestern Connecticut. Traditionally, these seasonal concerts would be held at dawn in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. Located in Harlem, the building of the Cathedral was begun in 1892 and is still under construction! Master Stonemasons from England trained young apprentices from Harlem to work on the project. My brother Christopher introduced me to this magnificent place many years ago on a visit to NYC. My sister Robin and her family actually showed up at dawn one year to take in the Paul Winter event there in person.

Due to Covid, these concerts are now performed live in Paul Winter’s barn in Northwest Connecticut and available on YouTube. We can attend at any time of day, sans the grand cathedral of course, but here in Montana nature offers cathedrals of its own.

The biggest end-of-summer event in the valley was the 56th Annual Helmville Rodeo, known as “the biggest little rodeo in Montana.” Helmville is our nearby sister town and Ovando families often stretch across both. The town empties out for that event, though less so this summer with many Covid-risk people staying behind. Howie Fly took dozens of excellent photos of the event back in the 1960s, when he was also a participant! We worked together to put them into a video last year and he has given me permission to share it. It’s a fun video with music and the photos capture the skill and daring of the bull and bronc riders. I've uploaded it to YouTube so you can watch it here.

Here is a bit of stray news that you may have missed.

I learned a new word from this article, although I don’t plan on abseiling any time soon. As an English Lit major, I particularly appreciated that the taste in books in the world of organized crime is obviously rising. You can read more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54209366

As the pandemic drags into its eighth month, people are zooming all over the place. Pricey conferences and concerts have gone virtual and many are free, as well as no room-and-board costs since they come to your living room and you can scrounge your own fridge while watching.

I always appreciate the double-hatted medical professionals who find time to serenade us. The National Virtual Medical Orchestra is an ensemble made up of 50 doctors, nurses, first responders, and medical students from medical orchestras across the country formed in May by John Masko. Some of the orchestra’s musicians are helping to lead the response to the coronavirus, while others have had their specialties virtually shut down by the pandemic.
Here they perform Puccini's Nessun Dorma.

History may not record this ground-roots flowering of talent around the world from living room to living room, but we can let them live on in our own hearts and memories. It is the hidden gold of the pandemic.

Meantime, those irrepressible Cubans are at it again! Making happy music together from different locations in the streets of Havana and around the world. Here they give us a lift with a lively rendition of Guantanamera.

I heard that the annual rummage sale in Downtown Ovando was a success. It reminded me of an afternoon decades ago when my friend Barbara Cross and I decided to go through our boxes stored in their garage in Julian, California. Nobody likes this job so we thought it would be more cheerful if we did it together. We’d open a box each and hold the things up and one would say to the other, “You know, I really like that” or “I really could use one of those!” and at the end of the day there were about the same number of boxes but we had just exchanged everything! A memorable event. A favorite Carol Burnett sketch captures this rummaging perfectly. Here she is with Betty White.

I couldn’t resist making this a double feature with another timely, short sketch that pairs Carol Burnett and Imogene Coca—two great comedians of their day—in “The Candidates Wives.”

My offering of youthful talent comes this week from two Chinese children, ages 10 and 7. They wowed their Talent Show audience with this performance of "You Raise Me up."

Now to all creatures great and small. Capt. Tom Moore, recently knighted, is followed here by an unlikely recipient of another honor, the PDSA Gold Medal, that goes to….are you ready for this?...Mahawa, the hero rat, for his life-saving work in Cambodia detecting landmines. He won’t be knighted by Queen Elizabeth but his work is much appreciated in that country. Since World War II, this organization has honored the contribution of animals, even to this lowly but heroic rodent. Meet Magawa, the HeroRat.

From creatures small to creatures great, you may remember the orca whale mother who mourned her dead calf by carrying it on her nose for 17 days, a thousand miles. The happy news is that she gave birth to a new calf a month ago and it is still alive and well and lively, swimming in the Salish Sea. As a vanishing species, the news was greeted with great celebration by the Canadian researchers who have followed this dwindling group of orcas.

That’s not the only good whale news! A blue whale was sighted off Australia for possibly the third time in 100 years. They are the largest animal on earth, ever! Larger even than the dinosaurs, which keeps them far out to sea where there is ocean space for them to move in. This one is estimated at 82 feet long. A beautiful sight.

If you look up at the evening sky in the southeast, you will see reddish Mars, at the closest it will be until 2035. Bright Jupiter and nearby Saturn shine in the south to southwest during dusk and early evening. They will be in conjunction throughout the Fall. Exactly between them, invisibly, is Pluto.

Blazing in the eastern pre-dawn sky is Venus, just below majestic Leo the Lion. To the upper right of Venus, you can see Leo's brightest star, Regulus.

In 1603, an out of work actor named Thomas Dekker published a pamphlet with a peculiar name: "The Wonderfull Yeare." It was peculiar because it recounted the death of Queen Elizabeth and the second arrival of the plague in London, after its first devastations in 1592. All less than wonderful surely. William Shakespeare lost three siblings to the plague as well as nieces, nephews and fellow actors. But worst of all, he and his wife Anne lost their son Hamnet. This fact is rarely mentioned, but the depth of his suffering in that plague may have led to the power of plays written during and after that time. Once the Globe Theatre reopened, some of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies were performed: “Othello” in 1605, “King Lear” in 1606, “Macbeth” in 1606, and “Anthony and Cleopatra” in 1607.

Fittingly, the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia opens with great care in the midst of the current pandemic to perform "Othello" to an appreciative audience of starved theatre-goers. Here is a glimpse of the project.

For Jazz lovers, I return you to Peter Sprague and his musicians for a concert devoted to the music of the Beatles. I've discovered that the link changes after the live concert so you may have missed the last one with Pat Metheny. It's a treat to get these concerts for free from top rate musicians and get to see a recording studio close up. Now you can play it in the background while you do chores or relax. Hope the link works this time.

In closing, I take you back to a special encore to Paul Winter's Autumn Equinox concert, which leaves us with images of his two horses, Nicky and Lucky. It is beautiful to see creatures running wild and free in this constrained and congested year of 2020. Hope for the future! It is short:

Please take care and be well!

Sheri Ritchlin

4 Comments

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.13

8/31/2020

5 Comments

There's life in the old town yet!

August 31, 2020

Here was a cheerful message from our Town Crier, Kathy Schoendorfer, that arrived in mid-August of this Pandemic Summer:

And come they did! A reminder that Cabin Fever isn't terminal.

First an update: Our 99 year old friend Capt. Tom Moore (he is 100 now) was indeed knighted by the Queen for raising 38 million pounds for health workers by walking 100 laps in his small backyard. He had expressed the hope that she wouldn’t be too heavy with the sword on his aged shoulders, but she also has age in her 90-some-year-old shoulders so she pulled it off with royal aplomb. Congratulations Sir Tom!

For many people in other parts of the US and the world (this letter has reached Argentina, Israel, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, Switzerland and Finland among other places. Welcome!), Montana is a Far Off Place. But apparently it wasn’t always that way. It was a go-to place for dinosaurs some hundred million years ago. North America's first identified dinosaur remains were found in Montana in 1854, near Judith Landing in the Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

The only human remains from the prehistoric Clovis Culture, over 12,000 years old, were found in 1968 on the Anzick Ranch in the Shields River Valley, 175 miles from Ovando. DNA revealed that his family were the ancestors of 80% of all native groups in North and South America. The remains of another child were later found nearby from the same period. At the time, the Anzick Boy was the oldest human found in North America, but the remains of a people from 13,000 years ago have since been found in Idaho. Not so far away.

In the photo below, Sarah Anzick and her family are about to rebury the remains of the Clovis children. Around them are members of tribes from Washington, Oregon and Montana.

Now Montana has a new claim to an ancient past and this was a surprise out of left field! Not old bones but Dusty Crawford from the Blackfeet Reservation who fulfilled his Uncle’s dying wish that he get a DNA test. CRI genetics traced his line back 55 generations with a 99 percent accuracy rate. Very rare because the ancestry often is clouded that far back. It was, they told him, like finding Bigfoot, it was so unlikely.

It has long been assumed that all Native Americans originally crossed a land bridge that existed in the past between Siberia and Alaska. But Crawford's DNA story suggests his ancestors came from the Pacific, possibly from Polynesia, traveled to the coast of South America and then traveled north. In technical language, he's part of MtDNA Haplogroup B2, which has a low frequency in Alaska and Canada and originated in Arizona about 17,000 years ago!

I have been following the career of the young Russian piano prodigy Elisey Mysin, whom I introduced to you a few letters ago. At the time of that performance, his feet didn’t reach the pedals, but here is a current update. His feet DO reach the pedals as he plays a Mozart piece for 4 hands with young Ivan Bessonov. You will see that he is still, well… a little boy, whose playing is extraordinary, not to mention the acrobatics. Do watch!

We have seen musical performances go virtual with technical feats but I want to show you what the Radius Gallery in Missoula has done to offer a virtual experience of art. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but you can move through the gallery at your own speed and click on works to move them closer into view. You can even go up the stairs to take in the exhibit on the second floor as if you were there! Enjoy their current exhibit of the Peace of Wild Things. I thank my friend Martha Swanson for introducing me, in person, to this fine gallery. Click on the link below.
https://www.radiusgallery.com/virtual-tour-july-31-2020/

Speaking of art, Ovando has a surprising number of talented artists. Here is just a partial list with links to websites that will give you an even better idea. Some of their work appears at the Blackfoot Store, like Brady Stone's metal art, and the Blackfoot Angler. In some cases, if the time is right, you can visit their studios. Call first to be sure.

Diane Whitehead - oils
https://www.dianewhitehead.com/

Dona and Gary Aitken - Discoveries in Wood
http://discoveriesinwood.com/

Martha and Jerry Swanson
  Swanwood Handcrafted bowls in fine woods
  http://swanwoods.com/

Jan Farrar - Middle Earth Pottery
https://ovandomontana.net/middle_earth_pottery.html

Jan Farrar - Mountainside Beadworks
https://ovandomontana.net/mountainside_beadworks.html

Tim Swanberg - Custom Cabinetry
https://ovandomontana.net/tim_swanberg.html

Angela Bennett watercolors
hlm5804@blackfoot.net

Cabin Fever Originals - Jewelry by Angela Williams
https://app.mt.gov/madeinmontana/Business/Details/9966

Andrea Morgan, Rooster Arts
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueRoosterArts

LaVonne Jorgenson Pottery
406-793-5719.

Those following these letters will know that I am always looking for some of the myriad examples of human resourcefulness, humor and imagination in the time of COVID. From Clara Igonda in Pasadena comes yet another scene that brings a smile: This one from Barcelona.

A World-Class Opera House in Spain Reopened With a Concert for Thousands of Potted Plants
2,292 plants were on hand to watch UceLi Quartet perform Puccini's "Cristantemi."

Or there is the boy who used his unique talent of solving the Rubik's cube in record time while on a pogo stick (I kid you not) to raise money for people suffering from COVID.

Now here's something to make you tap your feet in a happy way. You can do it at home in any room without a rug (kitchen, bathroom, basement?) or just sit and watch these people do the work for you.

This made me think of the terrific dancers I grew up with from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Gene Kelly. It was the heydey of American music and dance films. I found a medley of dances from that era to music NOT from that time, but it works.

In August, a double miracle: National Zoo's Great Panda Mei Xiang finally gave birth--a much celebrated event for this endangered species and especially for this 22 year-old Panda. The second miracle is that nature would have such an enormous mother give birth to such a tiny creature. The babe is the size of a hairless mouse and Mama is challenged to get hold of it safely. The tiny thing seems to be all lungs, so what you can't see you can certainly hear.

If you have teenage children you are trying to teach at home or just want something to share together as a family or enjoy alone, I highly recommend the splendid offerings of literature and drama provided at Intelligence Squared. This one is for lovers of Shakespeare and Milton-- especially for Becca Cross, who has played Cordelia in a production of King Lear, and JJ Wilson, retired professor of English at Sonoma State University. Well-known actors deliver snippets from each author with extraordinary and moving skill at their craft, bringing the works stirringly alive. If you like this format, they also do Dickens and Tolstoy, Jane Austen and Emily Bronte among others. Very rich stuff indeed. I highly recommend it.

I end on a peaceful, wordless note with another great creature of the deep, the giant manta ray. It is in gentle interaction with a human diver, freeing it from the tangle of a fishing line while also giving us breath-taking pictures of this strange and silent underwater world.

Be well,
Sheri Ritchlin

5 Comments

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.12

7/31/2020

1 Comment

The Great Bicycle Race That Isn't

July 31, 2020

The other day, I happened to be walking past the teepee near the entrance to the town when I came upon this sign. (The Stray Bullet was "currently closed" only because it was late in the day.)

My heart lifted with excitement: THE CYCLISTS ARE BACK!!! The Tour Divide Race is on! This is one of the great events of the year when cyclists from around the world pass through Ovando on one of the most challenging races in the world, from Banff, Canada to Antelope Springs, New Mexico near the Mexican border—2,745 miles or 4,418 kilometers over rugged, beautiful country, across the longest dirt touring route in the world. They come through our little town from places like Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK as well as towns and cities across the US. Several have said that Ovando is their favorite stopping place. The whole town receives them with a warm welcome and follows the race online. Conversations in the store are around how close a racer is and when they will arrive. Some are rooting for a favorite rider from a previous race. But the official greeter, the sign-maker, the Welcome Wagoneer, is Kathy Schoendoerfer—co-owner of the Blackfoot Angler and Town Crier. If you come visit, she has stories to tell! (I have written about it with Kathy’s photos here ).

You can get a first-hand view of this amazing event in Lael Wilcox’s video of her 2019 race, “I Just Want To Ride.”

Sadly, I found out at the store that the Tour Divide Race has been cancelled. But there are still cyclists who come through and they are warmly welcomed, as you can see from the sign!

We’ve had a face-lift on this side of town with a new paint job to our building. We look spiffy and ready for the world. It’s a lift too to see the open door of the Stray Bullet Café for breakfast and traffic through the Angler. I also appreciate the gentle reminders of coronavirus precautions.

The Tour Divide is not the only Great Bicycle Race that Isn’t! If you can believe it, the Tour de France has gone virtual. Another testimony to human ingenuity and tech talents. In this short video, you will see the actual riders at home, riding their hearts out on stationery bikes, their speeds recorded via the virtual site. It’s amazing to watch, though it certainly doesn’t take the place of the real McCoy. But a lot of real McCoys have fallen by the wayside in these months. Here are high-lights, but you should check in on one of the online races. Awesome!

Now here is something to make you smile. Once again it comes from the streets of Havana where, in spite of sometimes difficult conditions, joy is never in short supply. This flash mob plays Rondo alla Mambo, which combines the music of Mozart and Cuban Mambo.

In another short video, Sarah Willis tells us a bit more about how this event came about! (Click on the link.)

After the 3 year-old Danish dancing marvel I shared in the last Letter, I have another Super Toddler who will surprise you. The ability of a 3 year old to entertain, adult-like, by dancing, may be outdone by the sight of adults behaving like children. Either way, this Chinese version of the ever-popular “Got Talent” genre is worth the watch.

Here are Chinese dancers in a more serious and traditional form of dance that is truly extraordinary, made more so by the fact that the dancers are all deaf and the musicians are all visually impaired. This is the Dance of the Thousand-Hand Boddhisattva. The disabilities of the performers underline the dance as a further expression of the Goddess of Mercy.

“Guanyin made an oath to worry about all living things
until they are free from problems and suffering.
At this point, the goddess tried to help ordinary people
and noticed how her hands began to be torn apart.
Amitabha helped her and gave her thousands of hands.”

The next piece I want to share is another remarkable example of a disability—in this case blindness and autism--transformed into the offering of a spiritual gift by a ten-year old boy. I think you will be moved by it and the hope it provides for overcoming hardship. Meet the inspiring Christopher Duffley.

Goodness shows up in unexpected places, on land and sea. I thank my friend Wayne Tyson for sharing a video of the rescue of a humpbacked whale by a small fishing boat crew. Keep in mind that a humpback whale can grow to 60 feet long, and weigh up to 40 tons. A mere shrug of a flipper (up to 16 feet long) could have upended the fragile craft, which makes their courage even greater and the whale’s appreciation of them even more obvious.

Now, in honor of that majestic creature of the sea, I share one of my favorite pieces with you. Turn up your best speakers or don your finest earphones to listen to the song of the humpback whale as recorded in the depths by Roger Payne and “sung with” by the incomparable Paul Winter Consort in his composition Whale Lullaby, from the album Callings. Dedicated to the memory of my friend, and the whales’ friend, Jim Meadows, with thanks to Craig Wilson who introduced me to this album so many years ago.

On the lighter side… Growing up in the 1950s, we never missed watching Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner skits on the Show of Shows. Carl Reiner just passed away, so if you weren’t familiar with him, you will see him in this skit as the Health Food Restaurant Waiter. Considering that health food restaurants were virtually nonexistent in the 50s, the piece is ahead of its time!

Fast forward to the 70s. I was part of the Earth Song Bookstore-Ocean Song Gallery family in Del Mar, California. It was the Happening Place back then and our Halloween Parties were open to the whole town and so well-attended that the Fire Department eventually shut them down. Music was provided by Peter Sprague’s Dance of the Universe band made up of talented young musicians from Torrey Pines High School. Peter went on to become one of our finest jazz musicians, playing with Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Ravi Shankar and other celebrated musicians, gaining a worldwide reputation for his compositions and recordings.

Put your earphones back on! I have a real treat for you, to end this letter on a mellow note. Unable to perform his live concerts, Peter decided to do virtual concerts from his recording studio, Spragueland, in Encinitas, California. In addition to great music, you get to see behind the scenes of a professional recording studio. I’m astonished by the quantity of wires and levers that surround them! Not only is Peter a superb composer-guitarist, but a technical wizard as well. Many great albums have come out of Spragueland over the years.

It is a full concert, but you can pause between numbers or just take in the first one. That was my intention but I got lured into listening to the last note. You get a front row seat for some jazz greats. Enjoy!

This is for my young friend and budding musician Max Del Monte, and my seasoned jazz-lover Kathleen Chambers.

On that note, I wish you good health and happy days.

Stay safe!
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.11

7/3/2020

1 Comment

Hope and Restoration

The town is coming awake after the long winter’s sleep and it is green green green with summer rains. The Ovando Inn has visitors and—apart from these days of rain—the fisher folk are enjoying the lure of the Blackfoot River. Kathy and Travis are busy in the Blackfoot Angler. We now have a beautiful new town website, upgraded from our old beautiful town website. If you would like to take a peek at what goes on in this town of 50 and the Greater Metropolitan Area that surrounds it, (i.e. mountains, valleys, creeks, ranches and the million acre Bob Marshall Wilderness), here it is: ovandomontana.net

There are three businesses below me: On the left is Kathy and Travis’s realm, the Blackfoot Angler. In the center is Colleen’s Stray Bullet Café and on the right is the Blackfoot Challenge. Above them is my Hermitage with the great view you see at the top of the letter, taken from my desk.

Here is a description of “the Challenge” in its own words:

OUR STORY begins in the early 1970s, when landowners along the Blackfoot River recognized the need to build partnerships with public agencies in order to address natural resource threats facing the watershed. By focusing their early efforts where they agreed, these partners realized they could accomplish much more by working together. These early conversations paved the way for what would become public stream access and walk-in hunting on private lands in Montana.

Today the Blackfoot Challenge is active on many fronts, including the Blackfoot Community Conservation Area (BCCA), an innovative effort involving community ownership and cooperative ecosystem management across 41,000 acres of public and private land formerly owned by Plum Creek Timber Company that encompasses an important transition zone between wilderness, national forest, and productive private valley bottoms, with lush riparian and wetland areas and important wildlife habitat.

Among its projects is a program with Fish and Wildlife to bring back the Trumpeter Swans that became so endeared to many of us as children through E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. I think this is as good a story for adults as E.B. White’s was for children! Here is a heart-warming real-life scene that takes place right here in Ovando.

The Blackfoot Challenge’s Adopt-a-Swan Project is not only a restoration program, but also a hands-on education program. School children from as far away as Bonner, near Missoula, get to be present for the release of the swans and then to follow them through a tracking program.

You can see how far this project ripples out in this request to sponsor a swan.

Hello,
My family lives in the Woodworth area during the summer,
and the rest of the year we live in Quito, Ecuador.
I teach 4th grade at Academia Cotopaxi, and every year
we read The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White. Our class
would like to sponsor a swan.

Please let me know how to help.

Thanks and regards,
Jody Chritton

I have mentioned before that the education of Ovando’s children is a community project in which Ovando School children can take advantage of rich local resources. Below, an Ovando School group prepares to release their swan.

As the return of the Trumpeter Swans offer hope for our local wildlife, thanks to the dedicated efforts of folks near and far, here is another moving story of literally rising up from the ashes. Notre Dame Cathedral endured a shocking destruction from a fire which erupted in April 2019.

An entire world looked on aghast as this lovely, iconic structure which had graced the Paris skyline since the 13th century, erupted in flames. How on earth do you begin to resurrect it? Once again, human ingenuity and dedication comes to the fore, applying 21st century technologies to 13th century craftsmanship. Have a look!

Here is one visionary view of how the renewed structure might be designed, blending elements of both its past and its present. Human imagination is an amazing thing.

Much closer to home was the devastating fire in Paradise, California in November 2018, which reduced the town to ashes in a matter of hours and took the lives of 85 people. Academy award-winning director Ron Howard teamed up with National Geographic to produce the documentary Rebuilding Paradise, which will be released at the end of this month. For every ticket sold, $1 will go to charities supporting the town of Paradise, California. Said Howard:

“Now more than ever, we need to remember that when people come together for the greater good we can make a positive change on our shared future. The passion and commitment of the people of Paradise, to one another and to rebuilding their community, is a reminder of the strength and resilience of the human spirit.”

These comebacks are cheering as the hard times continue and there is still no sign of let-up. As always, the international language of hope is music and people continue to join together across continents to comfort, console and express gratitude to first responders. (I include Fred and Leigh Ann at the Blackfoot Store among those). Here is the One Voice Children’s choir, “always looking for opportunities to share hope through music.”

From Quimper, France: Isaac and Nora, the 12 and 9 year-old you met in a previous letter, joined another sibling pair in Mexico to make amazing harmonies across thousands of miles with the Garcia sisters, and all from their respective homes. Isaac and Nora's father, from South Korea, introduces their song in Spanish. This is a very multi-lingual multi-instrumental family. Their mother is filming them.

Here is another cross-continent collaboration. In this global choral and orchestral performance, "people from 5 continents, professional or amateur musicians and singers, join together to sing and play Amazing Grace to give hope to those who despair, console those who mourn, and encourage those who are on the frontline!"

From the realm of classical music comes this extraordinary moment between two world-famous orchestra conductors—Zubin Mehta and Seiji Ozawa. Ozawa has been afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease. Here his friend Zubin Mehta draws him into a performance with his orchestra and the deep reservoir of musicality within Ozawa comes alive. It’s an amazing and lovely thing to watch.

Now to another international language that just rises up, untutored, in the human. At least that is the case with two-year-old William Stokkebroe of Denmark. You are going to love him! I wish he could do a reprise right here in Trixi’s Antler Saloon.

If William demonstrates that you are never too young to take to the boards, here is a couple who prove that you are never too old! Honestly, I was gasping for breath just watching them!

To catch your breath, here is a reprise of Yoga with Man’s (and Woman’s) Best Friend, which you’ve got to love. Honestly!

I close the theme of hope out with this short animation narrated by Jane Goodall.
Gracias a mi Comadre en Mexico.

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Please stay well and enjoy your summer.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.10

5/30/2020

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Ovando, Montana in the Blackfoot Valley where "a river runs through it."

Call it Sprummer

May 31, 2020

Shortly after Memorial Day weekend, the leaves and blossoms seemed to spring forth overnight! Crab apple, choke cherry and off my deck, apple blossoms.

A bit late for Spring, too early for Summer, so I call it Sprummer—an in-between-season that is most welcome whenever it arrives, especially in the times of Covid-19. Montanans are cautiously taking up their lives in what could still not be called “normal.” The big question mark is whether the summer tourists will do the same. Tourism is Montana’s biggest industry. Last year about 12.6 million nonresidents visited Montana and spent around $3.6 billion. Considering that the population of Montana is about 1.6 million, the tourists out-numbered us 12 to 1. We look forward to their coming and hope they are as cautious as we have been. They come from all over the country and the world.

A sight out my window yesterday was iconic of the return of Work and Play. Of course, the ranchers have never stopped working.

I mentioned before that there were several Spring Events that did not happen this year. In addition to the School Graduations, we missed the Ovando Spring Clean-up Day. Every April, folks gather to clean up the town for Spring and tidy us up for the summer visitors. That includes putting up the teepee and cleaning out the hoosegow. Here is Kathy our Town Crier’s announcement from a previous year to show you what we missed. I suspect that the chores will get done, but it won’t be the same.

I recently heard from my friends Rorry and Jay, who got stranded at their condo in St. Martin. Saint Martin is part of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises 2 separate countries, divided between its northern French side, called Saint-Martin, and its southern Dutch side, Sint Maarten.

That may sound idyllic, but it isn’t when you can’t go out to the beaches and restaurants. The first cases appeared on St. Martin in the beginning of March and by March 24, a very strict lock-down had been ordered, closing markets and restaurants and all other nonessential activities. All gatherings were forbidden and the presence of gendarmes was much in evidence.

Jay recently wrote that it is just beginning to open up. I loved this note:

However, in week 2 of deconfinement, as nonessential businesses opened, we noticed groups of well-built young men on the beach wearing green tee shirts and short tight white shorts that were even tighter when they came out of the water. They were a pretty rowdy crew when on the beach and were not quite French. Turns out they were the Foreign Legion, helping out with Operation Resilience, the French military operation aiding St. Martin during the pandemic. Although not Lawrence of Arabia, It did give a rather exotic little twist to our confinement.

My “previous life” was in Del Mar, California where I spent many years, off and on, working at Earth Song Books and Ocean Song Gallery. Earth Song was owned by Anne Mery, after the retirement of Jim Meadows—the original owner. She just sent word of her latest enterprise: Eceltic Books—“a curated collection of books and treasures tailored to the needs of your event, conference, pop-up or personal library – informed by 30 years of bookstore ownership.” https://bookshop.org/shop/ecelticbooks

This is a new direction in bookselling meant to give a lift to independent bookstores by offering online ordering with direct connections to local bookstores under the umbrella of Bookshop. It is as easy as ordering from Amazon, but 75% of the profits go to “stores, publications, authors and others who make up the thriving, inspirational culture around books!” Here is their description:

Welcome to Bookshop!
Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. We believe that bookstores are essential to a healthy culture. They’re also anchors for our downtowns and communities. As more and more people buy their books online, we wanted to create an easy convenient way for you to get your books and support bookstores at the same time.
We hope that Bookshop can help strengthen the fragile ecosystem and margins around bookselling and keep local bookstores an integral part of our culture and communities.
Bookshop is a B-Corp - a corporation dedicated to the public good.

Check out Anne Mery's curated collection at Eceltic Books. Full disclosure: She carries my book too.

In many ways, this worldwide Covid-19 pause is a germination period for many new directions. The one that stands out for us is the hundreds, probably thousands, of living room musicians who perform the feat of playing collectively with others scattered around the world. While it is not entirely new, it has caught on in a big way among professionals and nonprofessionals alike, and it relieves some of the frustration of concert-goers marooned in their own living rooms.

Music is an act of love that conveys what words can't. That is what is brought home to me as I watch the various musical offerings during this pandemic. So many of these musicians, performing from their own homes, radiate the love of what they are doing and what they are doing it for. I will carry their voices and faces, in those huge mosaics, forever.

Here is a performance of the Napa Valley Festival Orchestra—always a favorite summer event—performed remotely. The downside is the lack of physical presence, the upside is that the audiences expand appreciably in quantity and in distance. Even pastors of churches have commented that their congregations have grown now that people can participate from home. Upsides-Downsides.

This is what people have seen in other years.
This is what all of us can see today virtually as Festival Napa Valley’s Remote Ensemble performs “Va, pensiero,” from the opera Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. It is "dedicated to all essential workers whose heroic efforts safeguard the health and safety of our communities. The Ensemble consists of 126 past and present Festival Napa Valley musicians, all of whom recorded their parts from home while following our virtual conductor, Zach Salsburg-Frank."

The Brooklyn College Choir had been preparing for performances with the New York Philharmonic when the pandemic struck. Pianist Harrison Sheckler conceived the idea of a virtual performance of “You’ll never walk alone” from the musical Carousel as an antidote to the loneliness of isolation. “Hopefully, the words, ‘you'll never walk alone,’ along with the visual of 300 people from 15 different countries joining together offers the audience some comfort and peace during this time.”

As we have our Memorial Day in May, Australians and New Zealanders have their ANZAC Day in April. Having watched the Amazon Prime series Gallipoli—not an easy watch—I was overwhelmed by the degree of suffering of so many ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops for what was a largely unsuccessful campaign. In 1915, they were part of an Allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula of Turkey. The objective was to capture Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The campaign dragged on for eight months and ended in a stalemate, taking a huge toll on the Allied forces with 56,000 deaths, including 8,709 from Australia and 2,721 from New Zealand.

Australians and New Zealanders made April 25th the day on which they remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in the war. Like our own Memorial Day, ANZAC Day now honors those who have fallen in all of the wars. Covid-19 prevented the usual celebrations, but it did not prevent this moving outpouring of remembrance in a virtual performance of "Waltzing Matilda."

That we have come a long way since that time is clear from the impassioned voices of young people of the new generation in this virtual performance of "We Are the World."

While in Mexico City, my Comadre Yolanda introduced me to a new dimension in the experience of art: “Van Gogh Alive” is a remarkable immersion experience in the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. It is impossible to describe or recreate but this video gives an idea (though parts of the original have been speeded up here with dizzying effect).

Van Gogh also comes alive in an innovative way in Loving Vincent, the first full length painted animation film and another intimate encounter with the painter’s life. It was a remarkable undertaking and that process is the subject of Loving Vincent: The Making Of.

Now meet Isaac and Nora, two talented siblings from Quimper, France (originally from Seoul, South Korea) singing a Cuban song “Veinte Años,” accompanied by their father on the guitar.

Isaac (11 years old) plays trumpet and drums, Nora (8 years old) sings, plays accordion and ukulele, while their father Nicolas accompanies them on guitar, Uncle Thomas on accordion, Romain on the tuba, and many musician friends.

Here, the person who is filming them is their mother, Catherine. I'm in love with this little girl, and you will be too. The song means "Twenty Years" and I can only imagine where she will be in twenty years. I hope it is a good place.

Isaac and Nora sing "Veinte Años"

From the very young musicians to a very old one with a heart-warming story that is the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, The Woman in Room 6. Here is a short introduction to Alice Herz-Sommer, who at 109 was described as the world’s oldest pianist and a tribute to the power of music to bring joy into a life even in difficult times.

Now something for those at home with humans' Best Friend, facing the dilemma of exercising during the time of pandemic--for Self and Friend. You will enjoy seeing a solution to the problem in the next video, although you may not feel up to duplicating the experience. In that case, enjoy it with your Friend from the couch. You gotta love ‘em, right? Oh yes!

Here is the peaceful end note. This time it is Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese."

Please stay well and love what you love!

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.19

Unstuck

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.18

While Bears Sleep

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.17

The Long Winter's Night

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.16

Deck the Halls

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.15

October?

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.14

Autumn Yellow

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.13

There's life in the old town yet!

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.12

The Great Bicycle Race That Isn't

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.11

Hope and Restoration

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.10

Call it Sprummer

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