Podcasts about State Museum

Governor Josh Shapiro is speaking out against the starvation of civilians in Gaza and called on U.S. leaders to increase aid to Palestinians. The only Spanish language public radio station serving Lancaster and York counties may have to cut programming, following the loss of federal funding. The State Insurance Department has announced the 2026 rate changes requested by health insurance companies currently operating in Pennsylvania. Double digit increases are expected in both the individual and small group markets. State lawmakers are calling on healthcare providers to be more transparent when it comes to their use of artificial intelligence. In the wake of an early Sunday morning fire in Stewartstown, York County, the Southern Regional Police Department is calling it an arson/death investigation. Former Magisterial District Judge Sonya McKnight is asking for a new trial. Earlier this year, a jury found her guilty of trying to murder her ex-boyfriend while he was sleeping. A new watchdog group is set to begin work this week in the city of Lancaster. The city's ethics commission is meeting for the first time Thursday night. Former Senator Bob Casey has a new job. The three-term senator is now a fellow at The University of Scranton, where he will mentor students. The State Museum of Pennsylvania is dismantling its Native American collection, which includes thousands of sacred artifacts from Tribal Nations across the country. Attention WITF Sustaining Circle Members! With a monthly increase of $12 or more, you and WITF's dedicated base of sustainers could close the funding gap left by the federal rescission. Increase your gift today at witf.org/increase. And thank you. Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the cost of living continues to rise across the U.S., parents in Pennsylvania are feeling the squeeze — especially when it comes to raising young children. In a recent interview on The Spark, Laura Beltrán Figueroa, Director of Policy and Research at the Pennsylvania Policy Center, shared how childcare expenses are forcing many working families into impossible financial choices. also, on the program. The State Museum of Pennsylvania is going through a remodeling overhaul starting Spring of 2026 as the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission is going through with a $55 million infrastructure revitalization of the buildingSupport WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) has announced a $55 million, multi-year revitalization of the State Museum of Pennsylvania — the largest investment in the museum’s history since it opened in 1964. The sweeping renovation project is set to begin in spring of 2026 and will include major infrastructure upgrades, accessibility improvements, new exhibit spaces, and even a rooftop event terrace with views of the Susquehanna River and State Capitol. Executive Director of PHMC Andrea Lowery joined The Spark to share details of the ambitious project and what it means for the future of the museum and for Pennsylvanians.Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now in its 58th year, Art of the State continues to serve as a cornerstone of Pennsylvania’s rich and vibrant arts community. Hosted by the State Museum of Pennsylvania in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, this annual juried exhibition features an impressive range of work—painting, photography and digital media, crafts, sculpture, and works on paper—highlighting the diverse artistic voices from across the Commonwealth. This year’s exhibition includes 94 works selected from a staggering 2,344 entries—the second-highest submission count in the exhibition’s history. Ninety-five artists from more than 30 counties are featured in the 2025 show, which runs from June 8 through September 14 at the State Museum in Harrisburg.Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Description: In this special bonus episode of City Cast Las Vegas, sponsored by the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas, co-host Dayvid Figler chats with Josef Diaz, the Curator of History and Material Culture, about their featured exhibit on the Old Spanish Trail — a 2,700-mile trade route that helped shape the American West. From the goods that moved between New Mexico and California to the hardships and hidden histories along the way, including Native American slavery, this conversation sheds light on a vital but often overlooked chapter in Las Vegas' history. The exhibit is on view now at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.  To learn about this episode sponsor visit the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hear about travel to Stuttgart, Germany as the Amateur Traveler talks again to Kristin Montgomery from growingglobalcitizens.com and mycornerofgermany.com about her corner of Germany in the Baden-Wuerttemberg region.  Why should you go to Stuttgart?  Kristin says, "Stuttgart is the car capital of Germany. It's home to Porsche and Mercedes Benz. It's a wine region. In fact, there are actually vineyards within the city, which is pretty cool. And around here, there are some amazing castles and also some really cool special events that I'm going to tell you about." Kristin recommends an itinerary that includes a mix of Stuttgart's city attractions, day trips to nearby medieval towns, wine regions, and castles, as well as attending seasonal festivals. Here's the itinerary she suggests: Day 1: Exploring Stuttgart Start at Schlossplatz: The heart of the city, surrounded by historic buildings, gardens, museums, and shopping. Visit the Württemberg State Museum in the Old Castle: Learn about the history of the region from prehistoric times to the monarchy. Stroll along Königstraße: One of the longest shopping streets in Germany, leading toward Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof. See Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof and Stuttgart 21 Project: Learn about the controversial railway infrastructure project. Relax at a Beer Garden in Schlossgarten: Enjoy local German specialties such as Käsespätzle (cheese noodles), German Maultaschen (Swabian ravioli), or lentils with spätzle. Visit the Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart (City Library): A strikingly modern library, popular for its Instagram-worthy architecture. Tour a Car Museum: Mercedes Benz Museum (Recommended for its historical storytelling) Porsche Museum (If you're more interested in sports cars) Dine at a Besenwirtschaft (Temporary Wine Tavern): Experience local Swabian wine culture, where small, family-run wineries temporarily open their homes as restaurants. ... https://amateurtraveler.com/travel-to-stuttgart-germany/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Fallingwater's listing the in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The State Museum of Pennsylvania has an exhibit honoring the place that held so much significance. According to Dr. Curt Miner, the Chief of Interpretation and Senior History Curator for the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the exhibit will be on display until January 5, 2025. "One of the things that we did in the course of researching this project is come across what I think is an absolutely fascinating fact. I believe it would be, which is that falling water in surveys is often ranked as the most recognized private residence in the world. Let that sit in for a little bit in the world. This building, this house that was built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1938 for Edgar J. Kaufmann, who was, by the way, a department store magnate from Pittsburgh, has been heralded as the most recognized and most famous private residence in the world. And where is it? It's in Pennsylvania. It's in the small town of Mill Run, which is in in Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania." Dr. Miner also highlighted "A Place for All Exhibit. This exhibition tells the history of three integration efforts in Pennsylvania after World War II. These stories testify to the courage of those who sought to end racial segregation in all of its forms. "The subtitle of that exhibit is "Three Stories of Integration in Pennsylvania." The  genesis of that exhibit actually goes back two decades. We had a curator on staff. His name was Eric Ledell Smith. He was a specialist in African-American history. And he came up with an idea for us and it presented to the curatorial staff and to the museum eventually. And he said, I think we need to tell the story of the civil rights movement in Pennsylvania. And his premise was that the  Civil Rights Movement is often thought to be the story that takes place in the American South. When you think of civil rights and the movement led by Martin Luther King and others, you think of places like Little Rock, Arkansas, Birmingham, Alabama, Greensboro, North Carolina. You don't think about places like Levittown, Pennsylvania, and Bucks County or Girard College in North Philadelphia, or the Highland Park swimming pool in Pittsburgh. And yet, Eric argued correctly, Those were all places where the struggle for racial equality in the north took place. It was simply the idea that racial discrimination, and segregation did not stop at the Mason-Dixon Line. It went North even in places like Pennsylvania."Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

July 25, 2024 - The recently departed head of the New York State Museum, Mark Schaming, discusses his career, including why he's leaving, developing an early 9/11 exhibit, repatriating Native American objects, and the challenges of major renovations.

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is July 4, 2024. This week You Gotta Regatta, and discover all there is to see and do in Charleston as well…Tour a working farm and sample homemade products on the Hampshire County Farm Crawl…and check out the WVDNR's updated hunting regulations…on today's daily304. #1 – From WV TOURISM – With the Charleston Sternwheel Regatta taking place in the Capital City this week, Charleston is the place to be. Check out all there is to see and experience here! Get outside and take a walk on the historic Sunrise Carriage Trail. Attend a Charleston Dirty Birds baseball game or head over to Slack Plaza at City Center for a concert or afternoon yoga. Interested in the state's history? Take a stroll through the State Capitol grounds and explore the State Museum of West Virginia located at the Culture Center. When you need to head inside to escape the heat, there's a great selection of local restaurants, breweries and shops downtown, from the award-winning 1010 Bridge to Bad Shepherd Brewing Company to Taylor Books.  Check out the Regatta schedule for information on concerts, wiener dog and rubber duck races and more. Read more: https://wvtourism.com/a-summer-guide-to-charleston-west-virginia/   #2 – From COME TO HAMPSHIRE – The Hampshire County Farm Crawl takes place July 13-14, 2024. It's a fun-filled adventure where you'll get to witness first-hand the rich history and modern innovations of our local farms. From farm tours to hands-on activities and delightful product tastings, there's something for everyone.  Come see the dedication and passion that goes into running these amazing farms! Learn more: https://cometohampshire.com/wvfarmcrawl/   #3 – From WCHS-TV – Updated hunting regulations in West Virginia include several charges to the dates of different seasons and transport regulations. The updated summary released by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources includes a major change which calls for a limit of two antlered deer bags, with the exception of West Virginia CWD Containment Areas where three antlered deer may be taken by Class XS license holders. Visit wvdnr.gov to download a guide to hunting and trapping regulations and dates. Read more: https://wchstv.com/news/local/west-virginia-dnr-releases-updated-hunting-regulations-season-dates#   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.  

Mike Frohlich is the is the owner and brewer at Laughing Sun Brewing in Bismarck, North Dakota. He's been a member of the local brewing scene since the mid 90s, using his former employment at the State Historical Society and State Museum to advance legislation on brewing. As such he's helped to get new laws passed on the production and promotion of locally brewed beer.He and host Si Willmore talk about the dream job that is brewing beer, his experience for how things have changed, and his aim to make Laughing Sun not only a great brewery, but a place where the local community feels welcome. They also discuss Mike's favourite beers to brew and to drink, the brewery's range of barbecue food and tourist attractions in Bismark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor during World War II, the lives of Japanese Americans changed dramatically.

  American's 250th birthday or Semiquincentennial will be in two years. Plans are already being made for celebrations around the country. The State Museum in Harrisburg has gotten a head start with an exhibit called Pennsylvania in Watercolor by artist Nick Ruggieri. Ruggieri's project involved visiting all 67 counties to paint a representative scene he chose for each one – often a historic site, natural feature, or signature industry. There's a program at the State Museum this Sunday at 2 p.m. to highlight the exhibit. With us on The Spark Wednesday were Curt Miner, Director of Interpretation and Amy Hammond, Sr. Curator of Cultural History at the State Museum in Harrisburg, who talked about the paintings in the exhibit,"It's really versatile. There's a lot of different perspectives that you can approach this particular collection. I noticed that there were, certain themes that really stood out. Industry, which is one and it is certainly the coal mining, was an important one, but also mills and, some industries that we don't necessarily go to anymore. And there's also transportation. He addressed transportation. There's architecture from the 18th century into the 20th century. There are historic sites that he captured. And, it's really fascinating to see the different things that he was able to find within each county." One of the unique aspects of the paintings is that they were painted with watercolors as Hammond described,"He was really a master watercolor artist. And what I think was appealing about that media was that it's portable. So he did travel to all the counties and he did preliminary sketches, and he brought his watercolors with him because they were easy to take along. And also watercolors is a great media for landscapes because it captures light. And he was able to to manipulate it and paint in a certain way that is sometimes different painting to painting, depending on what he was trying to portray." Miner said Ruggieri was well known in Harrisburg as the art director of the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper,"He comes to the Harrisburg area as a 12 year old immigrant from Italy. His father was a shoemaker. Nick is unusually talented at art and he goes to William Penn. Graduates from William Penn High School in Harrisburg, then goes to art school in New York, actually goes to Italy to study as well, and returns in the 1940s to get his first hitch in the newspaper business in Harrisburg. But he develops a very strong attachment to Harrisburg and Pennsylvania. And in 1971, four years, five years out from the Bicentennial, he proposes a project to his publisher, which is this idea of traveling across Pennsylvania and visiting all 67 counties to do one particularly iconic scene for each of those counties. And, this is his passion for four years. Take some four years to complete this, what he ends up with, I think over 80 paintings. So he did two or more for some counties, in particular. And the exhibit premieres at the then William Penn Memorial Museum in September of 1975. It's the first that we're aware of statewide art project completed by a single artist. And it gets rave reviews because Nick understood Pennsylvania as a series of places that were often highly localized."           .Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Winner of Giveaway of Pranav's book - Kunal Sachdev This week, The Musafir Stories speaks to author and content creator, Aakash Mehrotra as he takes us to his hometown of Allahabad of the yesteryears, now known as Prayagraj! Today's destination: Allahabad, UP! Nearest Airport: Prayagraj Airport (IXD) Nearest Railway Station: Prayagraj Railway station, PRYJ Packing: Pack depending on the weather, winters are cold and summers are hot and humid! Time of the year: Feb-Mar, or during the Kumbh if you have a chance! Length of the itinerary: 4-5 days Itinerary Highlights: Aakash covers a short history and mythological significance of Allahabad, formerly known as Prayag and currently known as Prayagraj, the home to the confluence of the 3 rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. We also cover other influences on the city including the Mughal period and the origin of the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb as well as the British period and the strategic location of the city. Important places to visit include the sangam, Allahabad fort, Civil lines and the british architecture, Khusro Bagh, Anand Bhavan, Swaraj Bhavan, Azad park, State Museum, Minto park, Allahabad University, All Saints Cathedral, Alopi devi temple, Kalbhairav temple, Lete Hanuman temple, Nag Vasuki temple, Jhusi fort of Chaupat Raja, Shankar Viman temple, Muni Bharadwaj's ashram. We also touch upon the literary connection of Allahabad including the Allahabad university and some of the popular hindi writers and poets including Sumitranandan Pant, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Harivanshrai Bachchan, Suryakant Tripathi Nirala, Kailash Gautam, Yash Malviya, Mahadevi Varma, Akbar Allahabadi to name a few. We also visit some of the important cuisines and foods one should try while in Allahabad including chaat like khasta and dum aloo, poor ke samosa, aaloo samosa, gajak, kali gajar ka halwa, malai makkhan, til ka laddoo, mughlai dishes, dahi jalebi, amrood, kandmool. Links: Link to Aakash's book: The Other Guy - https://www.amazon.in/Other-Guy-Aakash-Mehrotra/dp/9352017609 Link to Aakahs's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aakashmehrotra/ Link to Aakash's blog: https://handofcolors.in/ Link to episode on Nagaland: https://open.spotify.com/episode/26TT57iSuUu5iGXGjOCtPL?si=1qLlPkemRJ2eOA17I7Bx2Q Link to episode on Landour: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4jyTU9Q4fQK8AIkB0mBqbM?si=VhOwfvL-T8-XiLjg7IuneQ Link to episode on Pragpur and Garli: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PRTJBAwq50iebqS7L5XYM?si=b-d-sjX8Ttasum8lBQhHCA Photo by Shubhanshu Prajapati on Unsplash Follow the Musafir stories on: Twitter : https://twitter.com/musafirstories?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themusafirstories/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musafirstoriespodcast/?hl=en website: http://www.themusafirstories.com email: themusafirstories@gmail.com Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media. We are @‌IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. Follow the show across platforms: Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Gaana, Amazon Music Do share the word with your folks!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last November, we told you about an exhibit at the Idaho State Museum called "So Ready for Laughter: The Legacy of Bob Hope" that explores Hope's tours during WWII. That exhibit is now about to close with a big live show.

Feb. 29, 2024 - We highlight the Black History Month display at the State Museum, which includes a preliminary copy of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. We consider the significance of the exhibit and how it came together with State Library Principal Librarian Liza Duncan and New York State Librarian Lauren Moore.

Feb. 26, 2024 - Assemblymember Pat Fahy, an Albany-area Democrat, discusses legislation designed to inject new funding into the New York State Museum and inject new ideas into the operation of the Albany landmark.

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is Wednesday, Jan. 31  Learn why information & technology is one of the fastest growing industries in WV. The WV Division of Forestry seeks nominations for the WV Agriculture & Forestry Hall of Fame. And the 2024 WV Vacation Guide is here--make your travel plans today!…on today's daily304. #1 – From WV ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – Did you know that Technology & Information Services is an emerging industry in West Virginia? This growing cluster of researchers and practitioners includes university research facilities, government agencies and commercial enterprises. The concentration of Technology and Information Services, specifically our leading biometric organizations in north-central West Virginia, has been called the “Silicon Valley of America's biometrics activity. These strengths, combined with our state's skilled workforce, low cost of doing business and high quality of life make West Virginia a great place to relocate, invest and expand. Visit the West Virginia Department of Economic Development to learn more about these companies that have said #YesWV. Learn more: https://westvirginia.gov/industries/information-technology/   #2 – From WOAY-TV – The West Virginia Division of Forestry is accepting nominations for the West Virginia Agriculture and Forestry Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame celebrates people, businesses, organizations, and others contributing to West Virginia's agriculture, forestry, and family life. The WVDOF will induct select nominees during a recognition dinner in July at Jackson's Mill. Nominations are due by February 16. To access a nomination form online, visit agriculture.wv.gov. Learn more: https://woay.com/the-west-virginia-division-of-forestry-accepting-nominations-for-west-virginia-agriculture-and-forestry-hall-of-fame/   #3 – From WV GOVERNOR – Gov. Jim Justice has unveiled the 2024 West Virginia Vacation Guide, the state's official travel magazine. Travelers can view the 112-page guide online or get a free copy mailed to them directly.  Last year, the West Virginia Department of Tourism distributed over a quarter of a million printed guides to travelers across the nation and around the world.  This year's cover depicts a magnificent starry sky surrounding the Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory in Monroe County. Using a special printing technique, the front cover is textured to give readers an earthy, sensory experience before even opening the guide. To request your very own free copy of the 2024 West Virginia Vacation Guide, click here. To access a digital version of the guide, click here.  You can also find copies in the Governor's Office, the State Museum, all rest areas, and welcome centers. Read more: https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2024/Pages/Gov.-Justice-unveils-2024-West-Virginia-Vacation-Guide.aspx   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.

This episode's guests are Derek DiMedio, and Tony Stagliano, owners of Hershey Cycles.Located in the sweetest place on earth, Hershey PA, Hershey Cycles is doing things a bit out of the ordinary. A growing customer base and unique philosophy on customer relations, service, and sales this shop is one to watch. Listen in and learn more about Hershey Cycles, and their role in bringing focus to the Cannondale Bicycle Corporation, who was recognized with a permanent exhibit at The State Museum of Pennsylvania.Support the show

A new exhibit at the Idaho State Museum is exploring comedy legend Bob Hope's tours during WWII. Taking a look back at his life and legacy.

To continue our conversation about Generation X and the culture they grew up with, host Brian Mackey took a trip to the Illinois State Museum in Springfield to visit its exhibit "Growing Up X." The exhibit has now moved to the ISM's Lockport Gallery and will be open there through May 2014.

October 11, 2023 - Officials with the New York State Museum in Albany stop by the studio to talk about their new exhibit, highlighting the first American military recognition and Benedict Arnold's treachery during the Revolutionary War.

Scientists have discovered fossils that might have belonged to the heaviest animal in Earth's history. The blue whale holds the current record as the largest creature to live on Earth. But a collection of bones found in Peru might break that record. Researchers recently introduced the whale species in a study in the publication Nature. It is called Perucetus colossus, or “the colossal whale from Peru.” Each back bone, or vertebra, weighs more than 100 kilograms. The animal's ribs measure nearly 1.4 meters long. Mario Urbina discovered the bones in 2012. He is with the University of San Marcos' Natural History Museum in Lima. An international team spent years digging them out from the side of a rocky hill in the Ica desert.科学家们发现了可能属于地球历史上最重动物的化石。蓝鲸保持着目前地球上最大生物的记录。但在秘鲁发现的一组骨头可能会打破这一记录。研究人员最近在《自然》杂志上的一项研究中介绍了鲸鱼的种类。它被称为Perucetus colossus，或“来自秘鲁的巨型鲸鱼”。每块背骨或椎骨重超过 100 公斤。该动物的肋骨长近1.4米。Mario Urbina 于 2012 年发现了这些骨头。他在利马圣马科斯大学自然历史博物馆工作。一个国际团队花了数年时间从伊卡沙漠的一座岩石山坡上挖出了它们。The area was once underwater and is known for its rich collection of ocean fossils. The find resulted in 13 backbone vertebrae, four ribs and a hip bone. The large fossils date back to around 39 million years ago. Alberto Collareta is a paleontologist at Italy's University of Pisa. He was a lead writer of the study. He told The Associated Press the fossils were “unlike anything I've ever seen.” Hans Thewissen is a paleontologist at Northeast Ohio Medical University who did not take part in the research. He said, “It's just exciting to see such a giant animal that's so different from anything we know." After the digging operation, the researchers used 3D scanners to study the surface of the bones and also looked inside. The researchers used the huge but incomplete skeleton to estimate the whale's size and weight, said Eli Amson. He is a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany.该地区曾经位于水下，以其丰富的海洋化石而闻名。这次发现发现了 13 块脊椎骨、四块肋骨和一块髋骨。这些大型化石的历史可以追溯到大约 3900 万年前。阿尔贝托·科拉雷塔 (Alberto Collareta) 是意大利比萨大学的古生物学家。他是该研究的主要作者。他告诉美联社，这些化石“与我见过的任何东西都不一样”。汉斯·泰维森 (Hans Thewissen) 是东北俄亥俄医科大学的古生物学家，他没有参与这项研究。他说：“看到如此巨大的动物真是太令人兴奋了，它与我们所知道的任何东西都如此不同。”挖掘作业结束后，研究人员使用 3D 扫描仪研究了骨头的表面，并观察了内部。研究人员使用了巨大但德国斯图加特国家自然历史博物馆的古生物学家伊莱·阿姆森 (Eli Amson) 说，利用不完整的骨骼来估计鲸鱼的大小和重量。The team estimates the ancient creature weighed somewhere between 85 and 340 metric tons. The biggest blue whales found have been within that range, at about 180 metric tons. The body of Perucetus colossus stretched about 20 meters long. Blue whales can be longer, with some growing to more than 30 meters. This means the newly discovered whale was "possibly the heaviest animal ever,” said the University of Pisa's Collareta. But, he added, “it was most likely not the longest animal ever.” The research team said one reason the animal weighs more is because its bones are much denser and heavier than a blue whale's bones. Those super-dense bones suggest the whale may have spent its time in less deep, coastal waters, the scientists said. Other animals that stay close to the coast, like manatees, have heavy bones to help them stay close to the seafloor.研究小组估计这种古代生物的重量在 85 至 340 吨之间。发现的最大蓝鲸也在这个范围内，重约 180 吨。巨鲵的身体长达约20米。蓝鲸可以更长，有的可以长到30多米。比萨大学的科拉雷塔说，这意味着新发现的鲸鱼“可能是有史以来最重的动物”。但是，他补充说，“它很可能不是有史以来最长的动物。”研究小组表示，这种动物体重增加的原因之一是它的骨头比蓝鲸的骨头更致密、更重。科学家们说，这些超致密的骨头表明鲸鱼可能在较浅的沿海水域度过了它的时光。靠近海岸的动物，如海牛，有厚重的骨头，帮助它们靠近海底。Amson, from the State Museum of Natural History in Germany, said that without the skull, it is hard to know what the whale was eating to support such a huge body. It is possible that the large creature sought food along the seafloor, the researchers said. Or it could have eaten up tons of smaller sea life in the ocean. Thewissen added that he would not be surprised “if this thing actually fed in a totally different way that we would never imagine.”德国国家自然历史博物馆的阿姆森表示，如果没有头骨，很难知道鲸鱼靠吃什么来支撑如此庞大的身体。研究人员表示，这种大型生物有可能沿着海底寻找食物。或者它可能会吃掉海洋中大量较小的海洋生物。Thewissen 补充说，“如果这东西实际上以一种我们从未想象过的完全不同的方式进食，他不会感到惊讶。”

More than 90,000 immigrants seeking asylum have come to New York over the past year. In this exclusive bonus release for our podcast subscribers, we bring you a full discussion about the U.S. immigration system, how New York plays a role, and what the future looks like for those asylum seekers. Explore More: nynow.org

Happy Father's Day to our beautiful listeners! This week the girls talk about their Father's Day plans and the Juneteenth event at the State Museum of Pennsylvania that Amber attended. The I-95 explosion and conspiracies about why women don't have pockets. Check out the I-95 live stream! Come chat with us! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxxV6Z9gBjo --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/politicsbutfashion/message

Hear about the Juneteenth celebrations planned for Saturday, June 17th, at Albany's Underground Railroad Education Center as well as the African American Cultural Center and the State Museum. Paul Stewart, UREC's co-founder, also explains the work involved in restoring the 19th century residence of Black abolitionists Stephen and Harriet Myers, and announces recent approval by the New York State Assembly to fund $2 million towards the construction of a new interpretive center. For info on the activities and other UREC events, visit https://undergroundrailroadhistory.org/. Produced by Brea Barthel for Hudson Mohawk Magazine.

The new book Shifting Time: African American Artists 2020-2021 collects the art, poems, essays, and statements of over 70 African American artists as a glimpse into their lives during the pandemic years. Co-editors Berrisford Boothe and Klare Scarborough join the podcast to discuss this passion project that includes some of the Studio Noize fam like Tokie Taylor, Imo Imeh, Alfred Conteh, Delita Martin, and more. They talk about how it all came together from the Shuga and Wata online talks to the artwork and essays. They also discuss the need for community, whether online or in person, how events change artists, and the need for art during tough times. Listen, subscribe, and share!Episode 173 topics include:Shifting Time: African American Artists 2020-2021artists working during COVIDhow artwork changed over timenetworking during the pandemicvirtual communitiesShuga & Wata sessionscreating the book Shifting Timelessons from the COVID yearsthe trend of Black figuration Berrisford Boothe was born in Kingston, Jamaica and is now a U.S. citizen. Boothe has served on the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. He is currently a Professor of Fine Art at Lehigh University. Berrisford Boothe is the Principal Curator of the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection. He was one of 100 artists nationwide featured in Robert Wuthnow's book ‘Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist.' Berrisford's digital print collages, ‘Virtual Lithographs' were part of the exhibition African-American printmakers: The Legacy Continues at The Aljira Center for Contemporary Arts in Newark, NJ. He was in the 2008 seminal exhibition: In Search of the Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art at The Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia, PA. His work has been featured in exhibitions at The Allentown Art Museum, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA, The African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA, The William Benton Museum of Art, The New Arts Program, Kutztown, PA and The State Museum of PA.See more: Order Shifting Time from Amazon + Berrisford Booth IG @verbena2160 Presented by: Black Art In AmericaFollow us:StudioNoizePodcast.comIG: @studionoizepodcastJamaal Barber: @JBarberStudioSupport the podcast www.patreon.com/studionoizepodcast

To continue our conversation about Generation X and the culture they grew up with, host Brian Mackey took a trip to the Illinois State Museum in Springfield to visit its exhibit "Growing Up X."

In this episode of Truth In This Art, host Rob Lee sits down with David Kunian, the Music Curator for the New Orleans Jazz Museum and Louisiana State Museum. Kunian's career began as a freelance musicologist, producing award-winning documentaries on legendary musicians such as James Booker, Earl King, James Black, and the Dew Drop Inn, as well as writing and producing radio shows on a variety of musical genres.In this conversation, Kunian shares his earliest musical memories and discusses how he became interested in pursuing music as a profession. He explains the role of a musicologist and how he balances his roles as both creator and curator.Kunian describes his work as the music curator for the New Orleans Jazz Museum and the mission of the museum, which aligns with his own professional values. He goes on to discuss his approach to curation and the guiding principles he follows when putting together exhibits.The focus then turns to the memorable exhibits Kunian has worked on over the years, including "Me Got Fiyo: The Professor Longhair Centennial," and he shares advice for new music curators looking to achieve success. Kunian also reflects on his proudest moment in his career and reveals some of the exhibits he's planning for the future.Join Rob Lee as he explores the fascinating world of music curation with David Kunian, a true expert in the field Jazz. Creators & Guests Rob Lee - Host New Orleans Jazz Museum - Guest The Truth In This Art, hosted by Rob Lee, explores contemporary art and cultural preservation through candid conversations with artists, curators, and cultural leaders about their work, creative processes and the thinking that goes into their creativity. Rob also occasionally interviews creatives in other industries such as acting, music, and journalism. The Truth In This Art is a podcast for artists, art lovers and listeners interested in the creative process.To support the The Truth In This Art: Buy Me Ko-fiUse the hashtag #thetruthinthisartFollow The Truth in This Art on InstagramLeave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.THE TRUTH IN THIS ART IS SUPPORTED IN PART BYThe Gutierrez Memorial FundThe Robert W. Deutsch Foundation ★ Support this podcast ★

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is Tuesday, April 18  Discover fascinating facts about West Virginia at  the State Museum…a Morgantown research lab is getting a major upgrade…and a new film showcases skateboarding in the Mountain State…on today's daily304. #1 – From WV CULTURE & HISTORY – Have you visited the West Virginia State Museum? Located in the basement of the Culture Center at the State Capitol Complex, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday.  The West Virginia State Museum offers a variety of tours and activities--all free. The tours range from self-guided to in-depth discovery tours.  The Show Path is an approximate 45-minute tour through West Virginia history that follows a timeline from prehistory all the way up to the 21st century. History comes alive through dynamic re-creations of pivotal events and places in the state's past. Connected to the Show Path are the Discovery Rooms that feature artifacts, works of art, stories, music, film clips. The museum is ideal for families and classroom field trips, and for anyone who wishes to learn more about West Virginia history. Learn more: https://wvculture.org/explore/wv-state-museum/   #2 – From METRO NEWS – Upgrades are coming to the National Energy Technology Laboratory research site in Morgantown. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management will receive $150 million for infrastructure and laboratory modernization upgrades at all three of NETL's research sites including Morgantown, Pittsburgh, and Albany, Oregon. The money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act. NETL Director Dr. Brian Anderson said all three facilities are aging and infrastructure upgrades and maintenance projects are already underway or will start in the coming weeks. About $40 million and another $35 million of previously budgeted funds will be directed to the Morgantown facility for maintenance, an expanded supercomputer lab, and expanded research and development facilities for carbon conversion and critical materials programs. “When we have that increased capability, we will be able to better serve the department and better serve the taxpayer,” Anderson said. “So, it might result in increased research onsite and more permanent jobs.” Read more: https://wvmetronews.com/2023/04/08/major-federal-investment-announced-to-modernize-netl-facilities-including-morgantown/   #3 – From WOWK-TV Charleston –  With the Mountain State as its backdrop the skateboard film “Rhododendron,” cleverly named after West Virginia's state flower, features many local skateboarders, highlighting their skills. “We just want to showcase our state and garner some more interest for people to come through and check out what we have to offer,” said director and sponsored skater Mick Posey. Learn more: https://www.wowktv.com/video/new-film-highlights-skateboarders-and-the-state/8541934/   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.

April 4, 2023 - A long awaited, $14 million dollar renovation of the state museum in Albany is poised to get underway this fall. Museum Director Mark Schaming explains what's envisioned with the overhaul, which will cover about 40,000 square feet.

Office of State Museum: Performance Audit Services Senior Auditor Kristen Jacobs recaps a new LLA report that evaluates the Office of State Museum's management of its nine-museum system. | https://LLA.La.gov/go/podcast

Office of State Museum: Performance Audit Services Senior Auditor Kristen Jacobs recaps a new LLA report that evaluates the Office of State Museum's management of its nine-museum system. | https://LLA.La.gov/go/podcast

To continue our conversation about Generation X and the culture they grew up with, host Brian Mackey took a trip to the Illinois State Museum in Springfield to visit its exhibit "Growing Up X."

Feb. 03, 2023 - For more than three decades, museums around the country have been required - under a federal law - to return items in their collections taken from Native American burial sites. Mark Schaming, director of the state museum in Albany, provides an update on this effort in New York and discusses the time-consuming challenge of returning these artifacts

On display at the Oakland Museum of California is the marble statue of a girl who was once named the most beautiful woman in the state. What happened to her, and how did her crowning achievement also lead to her downfall? The Oregon Historical Society is home to an ordinary-looking tire cover that boasts a very unusual printed message. What warning does it provide against a power-hungry religious cult? A massive steel robot sits in the State Museum of Pennsylvania. What role did it play in the worst nuclear crisis in American history?For even more Mysteries at the Museum, head to discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/mystery to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.

Heather Miller is the museum's first director of tribal relations. She previously served as executive director of the American Indian Center in Chicago. She's also a member of the Wyandotte Nation.

Liz Hobson, the Director of the Idaho State Museum, and Mari Ramos with the Idaho Hispanic Chamber of Commerce join Idaho Matters to talk more about the roots of Hispanic Heritage month.

Transcription:Intro  00:03Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives, and advice on how you can achieve that too.  Join us with your lively host, Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Patrick Reynolds  00:11Good morning, everybody, and welcome to changing the rules and we have an incredible guest with us today. But before we let him on the air, I want to give you a little background, you know, we try every week to interview one of the luckiest people in the world. And the luckiest people in the world are those people who don't let everybody else control their lives, they figure out what they want, and they somehow figure a way to go do it. And you're gonna see how our guest meets those specs today. And the other thing I wanted to comment on is the name of our show is changing the rules. And the reason for that is all through our lives were given rules by everybody. Okay? When you start, your parents give you a set of rules. And then the schools give you a set of rules, and the Church gives you a set of rules and your boss gives you a set of rules. Before you know it, you got so many rules. And What rules do is two things. They tell you have to do this, or you can't do this. So the people who are independent and who become the luckiest people in the world have found a great way of changing the rules so that they get the freedom to be themselves. And today we have with us a young man, Patrick Reynolds, who is I think the best way to describe him is a historical cartoonist. So Patrick, say hello. And you can tell me that I was wrong and how he described you.  Oh, hello, Ray.  That's kind of accurate. I have a cartoonist that does historical subjects of places or people that you've never heard of. Or if you're familiar with them, something about them that's never known.Ray Loewe02:01So you found the interesting way of doing things. So you weren't always free to be you though. Warrior. Correct. So let's go back a little bit. When you are early in your life, you realize you had this flair for cartooning? Is that correct? Right. When I was a kid, and you developed it and when you had a chance to go to college or trade school, or whatever it is. You went to learn how to be a better cartoonist first.Patrick Reynolds  02:27I wanted to be an artist. And my hobby was artwork, okay. It would be great if I can make a living out of my hobby. So I made that decision to be an artist and I had a mentor, if you will in my hometown, who was a very accomplished artist, and I asked what's the best art school in our country? I can go to what I'm missing a beat. He says Pratt Institute, little known to me that is in the middle of Brooklyn, New York right next to the Bet Sty neighborhood. Okay. But you got through that you live through the experience. Okay, so, so early in your life. Okay. When you came out of Pratt, what did you do? I became an art director for an advertising agency in Scranton. It was sort of like getting my master's degree if you will. There's the whole thing. We can't hire you unless you have experience. So how can I get experienced? So this was it. So I stayed there a year and then I became an art director at an ad agency in Harrisburg. And I worked there for a year and then finally, the draft board caught up with me and says, you're not getting any more deferments. You have two months to make a decision. Otherwise, we will draft you. So I went in the army.Ray Loewe03:49Okay. And interesting. You were in intelligence in the army. Correct, Right. And it tells you something about cartoonists, doesn't it? And, you did some really interesting things. You did some aerial surveillance, and, you know, make a long story short, I understand you want up to the Bronze Star. I understand you left the Army Reserves as a retired Lieutenant Colonel. Right. Right. So this was a big part of your life. And I know you were telling me some stories when we were kind of prepping for this about how you actually wound up doing some drawing while you were doing this stuff. And, putting Mickey Mouse's on the flags just to keep yourself entertained and stuff like that. But rather than spending time there, I want to go on because I think the rest of your career was just absolutely phenomenal. I don't want to spend the time there. So  you left the army. Right, and what did you do?Patrick Reynolds  04:45I got a job as an artist up in Schenectady for General Electric. I always want to say generous electric But General Electric. And that got me back on my feet in the art business. This. And from there, I became advertising manager of the host farm here in Lancaster. That's how I ended up in Lancaster.Ray Loewe05:08Okay, now I understand host farm is significant because you learned two things there that took over your career, right?Patrick Reynolds  05:16Oh, well really one thing from the my boss, I still have to make up the rate brochures to tell what it will cost to stay there for at a particular holiday. And I would add matchups and what's going to cost with the type of room. And then I would get it printed out and bring it to my boss, the manager. And he'd look at it. And he'd say, I want price to visit idiot-proof. idiot-proof, what are you talking about? He says, I want it so that any idiot can look at this and not have any questions, they'll understand everything you're trying to tell them. And that became one of the keys to my writing style. Okay. And there was something else that came out of there a while ago, I'm not going to match it up correctly. But it had to do something you didn't know, oh, I worked for the after I worked for host farm, I got a job as the public relations Information Specialist for the state tourism bureau where we promoted tours around the country. And I would look at what other states are doing. And I figured I want to do what they're not doing. And 1973-74 Halloween time. And I came up with a concept of, of a tour of haunted places in the state of haunted places you can visit. And the story got picked up by the New York Daily News front page of their travel section. And a couple of months later, I met the editor of the Travel section. I said what did I do, right? And he says, you told me something I didn't know. So when I came up with my cartoons, I decided to do with a one on Pennsylvania. And it would consist of stories from history that people never heard of, or even thought about.Ray Loewe07:17So here we are, we're doing something we didn't know. And the cartoons gave you a medium to make them idiot-proof. Right? Well, welcome to your own world, Patrick. So this led you on a career so so go back. And there was a point in time when you took off on your own because I think you got fed up with the bureaucracy. And you had this creativity that you wanted to run but I think you told me a story of that dealt with the bicentennial. And taking off to Boston and seeing something about Yankee something or other in the newspaper. So amplifying in that.Patrick Reynolds  07:57I was a member of the Society of America travel writers. And we had our convention in 1975 in several cities, and one of the first one was Boston. And on Sunday morning, right after the that previous Saturday night, I was in my hotel room and I watched this TV show you just came on Saturday Night Live 1975. Anyway, the next morning, I pick up the Boston Globe, and they had a cartoon, it was on their front page called Yankee almanac. It was a whimsical treatment of Massachusetts Bay Colony history for back in the 1600.  And I said that is the coolest idea ever seen, I could do something like that for Pennsylvania. And at the time I was bucking for promotion to be our director of my bureau. At the time, I had delusions of grandeur. And so I did three of them. And one of them had to do with the July 3 and three significant events and PA and places that you would visit such as Gettysburg. Another one was on the mammoth fossil found in Pennsylvania, which is on display at the State Museum, on and on. So I did these three gave them to the higher up and didn't hear from them. And then what they did was they hired a guy from Virginia for the job that I wanted. And I thought I'm not long for this job. So he came to me and said, the powers that be were impressed by your comic strips, how long is it going to take to do one of them things? I said to myself, I'm not going to give this to the state. I'm keeping this for me. So I said four days a week, you know, wow, that's a lot to do. I said, Look, you're the boss. I'm going to do what you direct me to do and what you want done, I said but I'd like to do this on my own time. Therefore, I'd like you to get a letter of understanding from the powers that be that I can do this on my own time and sell it to the newspapers. And next day come back with a letter of understanding. And that's how it started. For there, I marketed to all the newspapers, I can in the state, I ended up getting picked up by 20 newspapers. But none of them were in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, one of these papers now became a Pittsburgh paper. But that was long, many long years later. So I did that for a couple of years. But still, I got I had time. Oh, after that cartoon started, it took me two years to leave my state job, because I came out with books on it. And the books sold fantastically, which I printed myself, by the way. And so after two years, I forgot I could make this on my own. So now you emerge as one of the luckiest people in the world. Right? Exactly. Because now you're doing your passion. Right. And there are two passions that I detect. One is cartooning. And the other is these historic events that you pick up. And you can make come to life for people, right? As if you're there. And you could do this and figure out how to get paid for it without putting up with the bureaucracy of the state of Pennsylvania, or somewhere. Exactly. Great. All right. So now we know why you were dealing with the luckiest people in the world. So over the years, what are some of the best topics that you uncovered? You mentioned the haunted houses, but what are some of the other ones that you found fascinating that you were able to turn into comics so that everybody could understand they were idiot-proof? And we tell people something new? Right, right. Well, sometimes I try to tie them in with a current event. For example, January 6, last year, the raid on the US Capitol, I got an idea of a different type of a mass gathering in Washington, one of the first ones and that was the Bonus Army that took place in 1932. What the bonus was, was Congress passed an act in 1924. That gave a bonus to every soldier that served in World War One. And that bonus was going to be paid in 1946. So at the time, in the 1920s, people were making a living, it was a great time. And then the Depression hit. Now, half these veterans, several million of them are destitute, their farms are being repossessed by the banks. So Washington had to do something. We need that money now not 1946. So Wright Patman from Texas voted in favor of it, but no one went along with it. The House passed, the Senate wouldn't. So a couple of guys, one guy in particular in Oregon, decided to march on Washington. So how are they gonna get that had no money. So what they did was they hitchhiked or they hop on freight trains. And they got as far as and this made the news. So other veterans from the rest of the country said we're gonna do the same thing. So they started hitchhiking and train hopping, trying all converging on Washington, DC, eventually, 20,000 veterans showed up and waited for the pressured Congress to and they're very organized, by the way, since these are military. And we're gonna stay. The chief of police got them to stay in some of the abandoned buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue because PA Avenue was being rebuilt. So what it looks like today. So where do you find this stuff? I read a lot. Okay, read a whole lot. And by the way, I've been doing this long before the way hadn't Google and stuff like that. Okay, so give me another example. So that's something I didn't know. Okay. And I think I understand it. So give me something else. Well, I got I gotta tell you the kicker on the Bonus Army, okay. They Congress voted against it. And it was dead. So half the veterans left DC the other half stayed there. And most a lot of them settled in in camps, and Anacostia, which is across the Anacostia River, and, and several many 1000s were there and he built their own shacks. Some of them lived out of their own jalopy cars. And when they refused to leave, President Hoover gave the word to his Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur to get rid of them, and General MacArthur along with his, Adjutant Major Dwight Eisenhower, when it's action, and they organize the two troops of squadrons of cavalry, and a one, two battalions of infantry to march down Pennsylvania Avenue and just kick everybody out. The infantry carried tear gas. The cavalry carried sabers. Commanding one of the squadrons was Captain George Patton. They eradicated everybody and he ended up burning all or setting fire to all the stuff at Anacostia. So it ended in a disaster. And when this hits the news, Franklin Roosevelt in his home in Hyde Park was the Democratic candidate for president that year. He just sat there told his aide, we don't have to campaign anymore. Wow, just lost it. Wow. So this is the core kind of story that you tried to tell in your publications. Is that right? Right, right. Okay. So, unfortunately, we're getting near the end of our time, and I want to hit something because you're kind of at the end of your publication experience. You told me you're going to retire. I don't believe that. But we'll assume that you're correct for the moment. What are you going to do and writing about your life and your history? And you I think you said that we're for events, you're gonna have to give us a short version here. But go ahead.  My editors asked me the question, are you gonna do a special goodbye, and I says, Look, I not only write history, but I've lived through force. I consider four significant events in American history. The first one, I was a senior at Pratt, I was given a freelance job to help this woman in her business. Her name was Melee Dufty, a renowned civil rights leader, who owned a booking company for burlesque acts in black burlesque theaters across the country. And she needed someone to work on her book, which is a page-by-page bio of each person, I had to do the lettering on it. So I can free her up so she can make phone calls all over the country to bus companies. And these bus companies were gonna meet at churches, black churches throughout the country, and carry people to Washington DC for the 1963 march on Washington. At one point, I asked her the dumbest question in my life. I said, Do you think you're gonna get many people to show up? She says you'll see. And that summer 1000s I think over a million people showed up to listen to Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Then during when I was in the Army active duty to participate in the Tet offensive of 1968. As a reservist in the army, I was activated to my company was activated that I commanded to take part in the rescue mission of from Agnes, the Agnes flood that day to Pennsylvania. And the last one was after the TMI accidents. I got a phone call from the public relations director of TMI. That's Three Mile Island Right Three Mile Island, the nuclear plants. And the what happened was the nuke the core of the one reactor virtually melted. And he called me and he says, are you comfortable with coming onto TMI? I said are you going to pay me? I'll be there. The job I had was to interpret engineer schematics, which I had experience in before, and making them into illustrations of these tools that they're going to use to break apart the core, and then pick up the pieces. I did maybe a dozen of these things. And they made a video out of it. And they never used the video because they've decided not to go into the core at all. So there's the fourth TMI accident.Ray Loewe19:21Okay, so amazing. Okay. And, you know, all I can say is welcome to the world of the luckiest people in the world. You're there, okay? We're going to have to do an encore to this because I just see the list of stories here. You can go on and on and on forever, probably. And I think the lesson that we hope people learn is, you know when you get frustrated in your career, you know, think find that key, find how you can use your passion and go off and become one of the luckiest people in the world. And, Patrick, thanks so much for being here. And Luke, sign us off and we'll see everybody next week. weekOutro  20:03thank you for listening to changing the rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest, and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.

If you have ever stayed in a Goan village, you would have seen children running with plastic bags towards a man on his cycle, carrying their favorite warm bread - the Pão! What makes this Goan Pão so special?Sonia Filinto talks about the different kinds of Goan breads and the fine art of making them. What are the ingredients that make it so unique and delicious? What is the cultural significance of this Pão in the lives of locals? And why will your Goa trip remain incomplete without trying it? Tune in to find out!Sonia Filinto is an award-winning director, actor and producer. Her film “Bread and Belonging” has been showcased in multiple film festivals in the United States, London, Australia etc. It is a heartwarming documentary about food, culture and migration through the lens of Goa's unique bread, pão.Travel tip: On your next trip to Goa, spend an evening with the historical artefacts in Goa's State Museum in Panaji and understand the history and culture of this beautiful state!Brought to you by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social platforms for updates on this podcast or take a look at their other podcasts.Hosted by Clyde D'Souza. He is a creative director who has worked in TV, print, and digital. His book Susegad: The Goan Art Of Contentment captures Goa through conversations, memories, stories, recipes and much more. He lives between Mumbai and Goa and lives the Susegad lifestyle every day! Follow him on Instagram @clydedsouzaauthor. Produced by Aishwarya JavalgekarEditing and soundtrack by Aditya AryaArtwork by Artisto DesignzBrought to you by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social platforms for updates on this podcast or take a look at their other podcasts. Hosted by Clyde D'Souza. He is a creative director who has worked in TV, print, and digital. His book Susegad: The Goan Art Of Contentment captures Goa through conversations, memories, stories, recipes and much more. He lives between Mumbai and Goa and lives the Susegad lifestyle every day! Follow him on Instagram @clydedsouzaauthor.

Juneteenth will be celebrated across the country a week from Sunday on June 19th. It marks the day when all enslaved people were free in the United States. The State Museum of Pennsylvania opens a Civil Rights Movement exhibition on Friday, June 17 that ties in with Juneteenth. It's called A Place for All: Three Stories of Integration in Pennsylvania. The exhibit is comprised of A Story of Strength: The Myers Family Moves to Levittown, A Story of Bravery: Integrating Pittsburgh's Public Pools and A Story of Resilience: The Desegregation of Girard College. We'll learn more about the exhibit on Thursday's Smart Talk from State Museum Director Beth Hager and Senior History Curator Dr. Curtis Miner. Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Skye and Anthony wrap up the Mining season with a look at the industry from the 1860s to today, and reflect on the ghost towns scattered throughout the state. If you like the podcast, you can support us by becoming a member of the Idaho State Historical Society (https://history.idaho.gov/membership/). A membership gives you free admission to the Old Pen and State Museum, early access to exhibits, early registration to select events, 15% discount in the gift shop, and much more! Join today!

Take a stroll with us through this eye-opening discussion about what it is like to be a person who sets up the exhibitions at a museum.  It is fascinating to hear how Lauren Nye evolved as an artist who specializes in 3 dimensions to one who also plans, implements, designs, and installs art exhibits at the Susquehanna Art Museum. You will never walk thru a museum the same way again! LAUREN NYE'S BIOGRAPHY: Lauren Nye is Director of Exhibitions at the Susquehanna Art Museum (SAM) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In her freelance work, Nye collaborates with individuals, artists, and corporations to bring creative projects to life. She has curated exhibitions at both commercial and non-profit venues for ten years and has assisted in sculpture installations nationally and internationally. Additionally, she served as a juror and/or judge at arts organizations such as the Berks Art Council, Whitaker Center, Carlisle Arts Learning Center, Creative York, and Millersville University where she was honored to be the first alumni juror in exhibition history. Lauren's interest in public art sparked the beginning of the SAM mural project, and she successfully coordinated the installation of an ambitious 1,400 sq. ft. outdoor mural in the Midtown district of Harrisburg. Nye's speaking engagements include the PA Museums Conference at the State Museum of Pennsylvania and the Impact Arts Conference panel on the challenges of opening a successful art space. As The Director of Exhibitions, Lauren manages the planning, implementing, designing, installation, and interpretation of exhibitions in the galleries at Susquehanna Art Museum. She oversees the shipping, insurance, contracts, travel, and loan agreements for all incoming and outgoing artwork. She also supervises volunteers and interns in the exhibition department. The Susquehanna Art Museum's exhibition plan of varied and diverse subject matter includes exhibitions curated by the Director of Exhibitions as well as collaborative curation projects and traveling exhibitions. https://susquehannaartmuseum.org https://pcad.edu/pcad_news/curator-lauren-nye-visits-pcad-oct-22-to-present-artist-talk/ https://www.midtowndesign.co/index.php/stories/#ep-04 https://theburgnews.com/tag/lauren-nye Podcast hosts, Molly and Justin are Co-owners of www.ThePerfect5th.com https://www.facebook.com/P5HeartoftheArtist

  Do you want to create a more inclusive environment but you don't know how to start?  Amy Bartow-Melia shares:   - Why the first step to creating a more inclusive environment is listening to the community.  - How assessing and implementing new hiring practices and office guidelines can attract more diverse candidates. - How to evaluate whose stories are told in art and museums to ensure that there is representation from diverse communities.     Connect with Amy at linkedin.com/in/bartowmelia or on Instagram @bartowmelia.

Today's episode features an interview with Brittany Miller, Site Director at the Corydon Capitol Historic Site for Indiana's State Museum system. She gives us an overview of the upcoming programming. We also discuss a few recent local developments, our frustration with Kyrsten Sinema, and of course, our recommendations. Don't forget to call or text us at 502-653-9157. Send us an email at bluedotharrisoncounty@gmail.com or say hi on Instagram: @bluedotharrisoncounty

Alexander Lavrov, Ph.D. is the founder at Next.space. For 20 years he has been bringing new innovative technologies to the cultural industry for solving challenges and creating new experiences. His portfolio in the cultural field includes more than 300 projects around the world for high caliber clients including Hermitage, Museum of George Washington, National monuments foundation, Discovery Science Channel, National Geographic, State Museum of Fine Arts, Darwin Museum and many others. Alexander is a member at AVICOM, board member of Digital transformation council at ICOM, member of American museum alliance, ex-president (now advisor) at VRARA (global virtual and augmented association), member of ACM Siggraph and IEEE computer graphics group. FIND ALEXANDER ON SOCIAL MEDIA LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram ================================ SUPPORT & CONNECT: Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/denofrich Twitter: https://twitter.com/denofrich Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denofrich YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/denofrich Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_of_rich/ Hashtag: #denofrich © Copyright 2022 Den of Rich. All rights reserved.

Airbnb is now the most valuable hotel company and attractions are testing face recognition technology. This week on Green Tagged we're discussing your Digital Footprint and how that is changing what attractions know about guests. Stories Covered: Airbnb's IPO; Facial recognition technology coming to Abu Dhabi, UAE, theme parks; Disney World Testing Facial Recognition Tech to Enter Parks; State Museum of Baden to feature Tinder-style app, My Object; Vacancy rates of Hong Kong street shops stabilize as eateries bet on spending bounce, cheaper rents to move into trendy districts; Marriott Quietly Launches Day Passes; Start-up Dash Living helps Hong Kong hotels switch to monthly leases, ride out pandemic slump.

This week on In The Community, we look at some of the spring fun going on at the Indiana State Museum and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Russians are a people who are serious about their rail travel. I began to grasp this point with a certain nuanced clarity as we took the train north. Our car was, to put it modestly, well-appointed. The bathrooms were spacious, nicer than anything I encountered in any building in Russia. It was so clean and inviting I felt inclined to lay down on the floor and take a brief nap inside. I could lock the door, so no one would disturb me.The Russian countryside passed out our window like an old-fashioned movie background circulating on a loop. It was difficult to know what we were looking at except lots of pine trees and a few minor villages interspersed throughout. The foreground pines zipped by, while the background pines lingered in the picture.Upon getting into the city we checked into our new residence, called Cuba Hostel. We were informed that we had not gotten the proper paperwork from our previous hostel (no surprise there). The Russian government likes to keep tabs on the lodging arrangements of tourists. We had apparently failed to register with the appropriate authorities. Once you move on from your initial residence, you cannot gain this paperwork. This was a little disconcerting given that we were going to skip around from hostel to hostel every two days or so for next few weeks. The girls at the front desk gave us a slight reprimand but told us that it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. Surely we weren’t the only World Cup tourists who had the misfortune of initially lodging with a Russian host who couldn’t be bothered to fill out the correct paperwork.We spent that first afternoon wandering from pub to pub watching the games. Our first stop was at the bar next door to our hostel, where we ordered Chicken Kiev with a Kasteel Rouge. We were gratified to discover that every entrée comes with a gratis shot of whiskey—a practice which should no doubt be more widely adopted. Argentina and Iceland played to a tie. We made friends with the Iranians sitting next to us. We also became friends with the drunk Germans, though it wouldn’t be accurate to say we made friends because a drunk German typically considers anyone close enough to share a Prost or two as a natural alliance. We decided to move to another bar for the next game. We ended up underground in a sweaty “traditional English” pub. Every room in St. Petersburg boasts a mysteriously higher level of humidity than the world outside. The best outcome is a bit of additional moisture, the worst outcome is the scent of warm cheese and Russian body odor. We sat at a table with some Americans, from the midwest, who had spent the last four years teaching in Korea and Shanghai. As we left, we nodded goodbye to the Socceroos behind us.Aussie #1: “Go Australia!”“That’s right, mate!” I replied in a good natured, moderately drunken spirit.Aussie #2, obviously a very clever lad: “Good luck to USA in the tournament. Oh, wait…”To which I replied, “Good luck remaining influential in world politics.”Oh, wait.We went out to get a feel for St. Petersburg. If Moscow is arrayed as nested circles, then St. Petersburg is arranged as intersecting lines. Moscow’s center of gravity is Red Square, and everything emanates out from it. St. Petersburg features a number of main drags along which the prominent landmarks are scattered. We walked now along one of the most touristed main drags, then up toward the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood. The extravagant architectural sensibilities that produced St. Basil’s Cathedral—the one topped with exotic sour cream and dumplings—are more prominent in St. Petersburg than they are in Moscow, as Spilled Blood attests. It isn’t nearly as dire as it sounds. Though less celebrated than St. Basil’s, it is every bit as enchanting. It’s a church conceived by Pixar animators, with improbable spires plopped upon decadent columns. A magnificent, blood red brick structure festooned with elaborate dashes of color. It is a curious mix of eastern and western, resisting easy categorization—just like Russia itself. We stood for a few moments to take in it.The church was situated right next to the FIFA Fan Zone, which we went to investigate afterward. The Fan Zone was a large concrete swath of city set aside for fans to watch the game. They served beer there, as well as some game food. The most that it had to recommend it was that the television screen was large, the alcohol was attainable, and the venue was public. It was exclusively standing room. None of these were inducement enough for us to hang out around. So we retired for the evening.We awoke the next morning at 5am with the sun high overhead and spilling into our room. We heard the sound of partying on the streets, straining to perpetuate the festivities in transition from the wee hours to more substantial ones. There were chants in Spanish. We heard someone york in the bathroom adjacent to our room. Then we fell back asleep.When we had risen for the day we set off for St. Petersburg’s ethnography museum. We found it on a street several removed from one of the cities main arteries. We were the only people on the block. Thinking the museum might be closed, we approached its vast wooden doors, standing ten feet high, and tugged on them experimentally. They opened in an empty room with high ceilings, at least three stories tall. We walked over to the ticket booth. No one in line. I cheerfully engaged the ticket clerk, testing how far English would get me if I delivered it with a gracious smile. The lady, however, seemed indifferent to whether or not a warm body found its way into the museum. She mechanically slid us a ticket and a map, then we went to explore the exhibits.The display gave accounts of the various indigenous ethnic groups of the former Russian empire: Moldovan, Ukranian, Belarussian, etc. Each display featured a tidy alcove of life-sized figurines engaged in activities, such as fishing or weaving. Importantly, the figurines were not intended to be representations of what the people looked like—with ungainly carvings and over-exaggerated features—but just to give the feeling that a scene was taking place, with a person and an action. Each display had a wall of labeled paraphernalia germane to the societies in which the peoples lived. The displays were clearly put together with great care and admiration for their subjects. The little old ladies monitoring the exhibits, unlike most museum security, seemed like they would have responded with passion and knowledge if you had asked them about the exhibit they oversaw. Of course we couldn’t because we didn’t speak Russian. The exhibits were labeled in Russian, so we were unable to understand the specifics of them. We discovered a stash of laminated cards explaining what we were looking at, but we were disappointed to find that they too were in Russian. One of the monitors observed us looking over the card and explained to us, in Russian, something lengthy and involved that amounted to the effect of “Put the card back when you’re done.”We were unable to learn all that much about the indigenous peoples of Russia, except that they were more various than we might have supposed. But it was clear from the exhibits that each of these people groups, along with the contemporary brand of Russians, were a people who payed exquisite attention to detail. Their traditional garbs without exception were complex and ornately decorated, as if they had had all winter with nothing to do but spend it sewing and had used that time productively. Whoever constructed the exhibits shared the same keenness for nuance as the people depicted. My favorite were the dioramas. These weren’t your elementary schools constructions in a cardboard box. These were fantastic beyond anything I could have ever imagined a diorama to be. They were built in such a way as to convey the appearance of linear perspective. In a typical diorama, the figures in a scene are all the same size, and looking over it as a being of larger magnitude, you have the privileged perspective to view the scene as God would, everything all at once uncommitted to any particular vantage point. This description is merely factual and does nothing to give you the sense of how much goes into executing such an effect in three dimensions. Not so with these displays. One diorama showed a seamstress workshop. The sewing stations in the back were smaller than those in the front, like they would be in an oil painting, giving the scene an appearance of depth. I was hugely impressed.Another of the dioramas was of an entire town. Every detail was carefully implemented, all the way down to the texture of the thatched roofs. I got the feeling that I was seeing the same pride in the presentation of a model city that I had observed in the presentation of a real one in Moscow.My one regret from the museum was that I got the feeling that I was looking at a varied and diverse set of people groups, but I was unable to distinguish between them. I couldn’t even contextualize them geographically, because I couldn’t read the inscriptions. They didn’t have maps, either, which would’ve been a big help. Even with that in mind, it was a delightful showcase of, in the words of the museum’s introductory video, the “universal and synchronism of culture of the Russian empire.”We were ready for a coffee break and presently found a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop on our walk back toward the main drag. I got a cup of coffee and a donut. It is well known that Europeans give Americans s**t for their croissants. And they’re right. Americans just don’t have the wherewithal to make croissants like Europeans do. I don’t care how good the bakery is. They’re not gonna make a croissant like you could get at even a mediocre boulangerie in Paris. What is less well recognized is that a symmetrical inability applies to Europeans attempting to make donuts. They just don’t get it. The proper execution of a donut is beyond them. Just as Americans don’t have the proper cultural legacy to do a croissant with that je nais se quoi, it’s not within the cultural repertoire of Europeans to get the significant details of a donut correct—from the springiness of the dough, to the proper surface tension when you bite into the epidermis, to a committed distinction between cake and raised donuts, to icing that doesn’t immediately call to mind molten plastic that is in the process of setting. Europeans couldn’t make a donut that competes with even a meager offering from Dunkin. This was, at any rate, the theory I emphatically related to Haily as I scarfed down my donut.Caffeinated and reveling in cultural superiority we made our way to the Fabergé museum. I must admit I didn’t expect much from a gallery whose most celebrated attraction is a collection of nine eggs. Big deal, right? But as soon as we walked in I was struck by a feeling of recognition. This was the same love of ornateness and convolution that had inspired the exhibits in the ethnography museum. Whereas the indigenous Russians developed complex ornamental clothing, the imperial Russians developed complex ornamental eggs. If the Moldovans or the Ukranians had had the proper equipment, no doubt they would’ve been churning out fantastic eggs all winter long. These eggs were the centerpiece of the collection, obviously—colored in glowing azures and low-on-the-horizon sunset, studded with diamonds and other baubles that made you comprehend why these ornaments are so expensive. They looked substantial enough that if you tried to pick them up your hand would immediately be pinned to the floor, like a mortal attempting to wield Thor’s hammer. They were ornate without giving the impression of being overly busy. Nothing was superfluous; if one pattern were removed, it would feel like it’s missing something. Even the rooms that housed the eggs were spectacular: gold-laced fenestration, moulding that commanded attention, and a chandelier that was, well, one big ass chandelier, which is the only thing that can separate one chandelier from another in my mind. The museum featured more than eggs, too. One case was filled with tea sets that would make Queen Elizabeth blush. This all felt like the logical extension of what we’d previously seen, and it was superbly satisfying.Now it was time for a drink. We repaired to a bar which we had identified as suitable establishment for day drinking (it was about 2:30). We were the only customers. We like being the only customers. Partially, it's about service. We don’t want to wait. Nor do we want to compete for the bartender’s attention. But we also like to get to know the person making our drinks behind the bar. That’s the difference between a chef and a bartender. The position of a chef is not customer-facing. A bartender plies her craft in the open. But these bartenders—Russian bartenders—were there solely to conduct business. They had no interest in banter or introductory dialogue, as is customary in America. Our relationship was transactional—what do you want? I’ll get it for you. You drink it. That’s it. We’d hoped instead that we might’ve made friends with the gentlemen before their shifts began in earnest and knocked back a couple convivial shots of vodka initially at our behest, then a round on the house, as a sort of celebration of a life and all that it has to offer. Alas.That night we went to the Fan Zone again. This time for the Mexico versus Germany game. Now the Moroccans and the Egyptians were out en masse. Both of these groups endeared themselves to us throughout our time in St. Petersburg. In the case of the Moroccans, you could not possibly imagine a friendlier group of people. I went around the city in my Portuguese Ronaldo jersey. The Portuguese and the Moroccans were slated to play one another the following week. Seeing my jersey, dozens of Moroccans came up to me and asked to take a picture. We may be adversaries tomorrow but today we are comrades, drawn together by the mutual respect inherent in a competition. It is an amazing sight of the World Cup to see people representing different cultures taking pictures together and acting in a congenial manner expressly because they come from opposing factions. The world can use as much of that as it can get, wouldn’t you say? The Egyptians, for their part, are very good at cheering. I didn’t meet a single North African who wasn’t a remarkably warm and agreeable person.Afterwards we went to Orthodox, the preeminent craft cocktail venue of St. Petersburg. Orthodox specializes in traditional Russian alcoholic beverages. We sampled Polugar (the Russian national drink, also known as "bread wine"), Chacha (a type of brandy, also know as "grape vodka"; Russians don't have command over an especially large array of alcoholic templates), and Khrenovukha (vodka made from horseradish root; this one infused with wasabi). Each of these base spirits was paired with a unique flavor profile, such as sea buckthorn. Afterward our stomaches felt as if they’d been experimented on by a Russian chemist. We felt finally felt culturally grounded in Russia.On our way back to the hostel, staggering jauntily through the streets of St. Petersburg, we stopped for funnel cake. Vendors are scattered throughout the streets of the city selling these absurdly delicious treats. The essential idea is to take dough, and wrap it around a tube which looks more or less like what you'd use to repaint your living room. Then you cook it on a wall of spits. After that, douse it in something sweet, like cinnamon sugar. Happiness ensues. While waiting for funnel cake, we chatted up some Moroccans. I can't honestly remember what they said, but I can tell you they were, as always, very nice.Crossing the street in Russia is like crossing Las Vegas Boulevard. The destination might only be 20 yards away, but it could take you 45 minutes to get there. It seemed we spent whole days waiting at walk signals.We walked to the Hermitage, which is known as a building of historical significance in St. Petersburg. What is less known is that it is also the world’s largest and most well-appointed doll house. It looks as if the architect was inspired by the finest playhouses available to young girls in 1950s America. It is so big that it is impossible to take in the whole façade in one view. It is also painted teal. Specifically, it’s the teal that a thirteen-year-old girl chooses when she’s bored of whatever the original color of her room was. It is a grand, feminine, and slightly surreal building.We made the long walk across the city's main bridge. It was hot enough to set brownie batter. After wandering streets that felt increasingly suburban, we chanced upon a vast, open compound. The compound, it turned out, was something of a lost and found bin of monuments and attractions. My favorite was a series of still shots celebrating Putin's presidency. They were printed out on posters the size of a large television. Each depicted a memorable moment of Putin’s term. Some of the events seemed significant, such as Putin gravely signing a document, German chancellor Angela Merkel nodding approvingly in the background. Other events commemorated seemed significant but in a different way. Take for instance a shot of ol' Vlad riding a horse bare-chested exposing the fleshy expanse of his upper body. It looked like someone had taken the kinds of pictures that a normal person would post on social media and printed them out and stuck them in the ground at the entrance to this fortress. I loved it.Among the other attractions on the premises was a tall and pointy church, several remarkable statues of giant, human-sized rabbits, like something out of Alice in Wonderland, a world-record-holding bug, and an exhibit on King Tut. We were unable to figure out what was remarkable about the bug, other than it certainly was a doozie.Then we went to the State Museum of Russian political history. Russian museums in general have the delightful benefit of being astonishingly cheap and of commendably high quality. They do on the other hand tend to have the drawback of being almost entirely in Russian. This is not especially helpful if this is not a language over which you have a solid command. They feature lots of details, not a lot of narrative. What was clear was that Russians have for most of their history been at the mercy—or lack thereof—of their rulers.Sated on Russian history, we made our back toward the city center. At length we passed a bus with the slogan for the Egyptian national team: “When you say Pharoahs, the world must get up and listen.”Oh, must they?The thing is, I’m sure this makes perfect sense in Arabic. Unfortunately it’s quite unsuitable for English. I think this is something that we tend to forget about unless expressly reminded of—just how differently sentiments can be expressed in different languages. Only when we are faced with the problem of translation (which we rarely are) does it become apparent. That being said, most World Cup national slogans are stupid, or at the very least lack wit.Poland’s for instance is, “Go Poland!” That must’ve required a lot of thought.But at least it’s a coherent thesis. Some countries are just not to be trusted in this respect. Consider Australia’s in 2014: "Socceroos: Hopping Our Way Into History!" Maybe it's best not to indulge the creative itch for sloganeering, if that’s not your strong suit.Here’s one that’s not so terrible, Senegal in 2018: “IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT SENEGALESE.” (Note that it’s not uncommon for teams to opt for all caps, presumably because it’s a more intimidating way of delivering the content than simply stating one’s slogan.) However, the slogan becomes a bit more suspect in light of the 2014 French motto: "Impossible Is Not A French Word.” See any similarities? Maybe the French wiped out the notion of impossibility during their colonial rule, who’s to say.Here’s a couple good ones from 2010. Denmark’s rather provocative claim: "All you need is a Danish team and a dream.” New Zealand’s rather casual: “Kickin’ it Kiwi style.”In the evening we set off to find an appropriate venue to watch the Belgium game. We stumbled upon a Belgian brasserie. We poked our head in and were disappointed to find that the establishment was full. Then a table in the back noticed my Belgium jersey and beckoned us over. We graciously joined them. The occupants were Belgian Moroccans, or Moroccan Belgians—at any rate ethnic Moroccans who lived in Belgium.“You Belgian?” asked one of them.“No,” I replied. They eyed me suspiciously.“Why Belgium?”I didn’t have a particularly strong answer to this.One of the Moroccans was a drinker, loud and emphatic. He pounded the table when an opportunity was missed by the Belgian national team. His friend, not a drinker, was stolid and gestured for his compatriot to calm the hell down. The non-drinker didn’t have a strong command of English. We made a brief attempt at an exchange in Spanish, and then in Dutch, both of which were more successful. It’s a rare moment on planet earth that someone is worse at English than I am at those languages. But there you are.After the game we went in search of further drink, unconstrained by association with the European lowlands. We found our way into an alley in which we had identified a cozy bar of interest the night before. We had declined to stay then since it didn’t have a TV to watch soccer. We took a couple seat along the back wall. The bar counter was three sides of a rectangle, each face with three or four seats. There were about half a dozen seats along the back wall. It was intimate. You could listen in to any conversation in the establishment if you were so inclined. Everyone there was Russia. No English menu, either. The bartender suggested some local fare: a Moscow Mule and a White Russian. We declined those offers. We managed two negotiate a couple mystery drinks—whatever the bartender found himself into at the time. We got the drinks. They were served high in sugar content, in accord with Russian preference. News spread through the bar that we were Americans. One of the men sitting at the bar leaned over to me. “My friend Roman wants to know," he asked, as if soliciting an illicit substance. "Why Belgium?”The cocktails frankly were not good but the people were and that’s just as well. That’s really the most that I can tell you because my notes from the night were not that helpful and my memories were not well retained in any more natural form. When a couple spots opened up at the bar we moved over to sit next to everyone else. We did eventually order a couple White Russians. It's a delicious drink, really. The barkeep served us another dealer’s choice, this time a Sambuca and cream (our new friends were not sophisticated palates).We saw the bartender serve a set of shots to another group of patrons. They were in vials. The set included a dozen shots in total. We ordered a round. We liked the look of it—real Russian chemistry—but it was far too much for us. We were pretty knackered at this point. So we shared with the bar. Needless to say, this act endeared us to the locals. To our left were a couple gentlemen with whom I got along with very nicely. They took a great interest in me. We suspected them to be homosexuals, so I won’t disclose their identities here since the Russian government doesn’t look kindly on that sort of thing. We spent most of the night conversing with them and then also, sitting perpendicular to us at the bar, with Roman and Roman’s friend. I impressed them all with my ability to spell Polugar in Cyrillic.Then we went back to Orthodox. We tried to convince our new friends—those of the unsophisticated palates—to come with us. It was, after all, traditional Russian alcohol. They politely had one drink, exchanged perplexed glances while they thought we weren’t looking, then took off. We ended up making friends with some Belgians. We discussed the Congo and the United Nations, or something like that. They were a very worldly pair. But we were not, suffice to say, in the best state to entertain nuanced political discourse.The previous evening I had filed a request for laundry service with the front desk of our hostel. Judging from her expression, I could not have saddled the young woman at the front desk with a weightier imposition. That morning I asked her if our laundry was done. She told me it wasn’t. “But we saw it in the drier with an hour left last night.” She gave me a pained look to confirm that I was going to make things difficult. The two of us went in search of my clothes. When after a couple minutes we were unable to locate them she sort of shrugged said, “don’t worry.”“I’m not not going to worry,” I told her. “I have no faith in you.”“It’s here,” she said indicating toward the dryer.“But these aren’t my clothes,” I said as I rifled through someone else’s delicates.She disappeared for a moment to do something else. I couldn’t tell what. I stood there and researched places I had already searched a couple times. She came back. “Don’t worry,” she repeated. “In here.”Then she reached into the dryer and pulled out a drawstring bag, which upon inspection was full of our clothes. This seems like it might perhaps have been worth mentioning at the outset.Laundry progress verified, we presented ourselves next at Kazan Cathedral. This is the most notable cathedral in St. Petersburg. It take up an entire city block, in two directions. Most of the building is a series of extended wings supported by columns, as if designed for a raised air strip, rather than a sanctuary. Entering the cathedral, you’re not struck with the same gravity that often comes with these kinds of churches. The difference is that Kazan feels that it has been preserved in a way other cathedrals are not. It is like walking into a living room where all of the furniture is covered in plastic. Everything might as well be covered in Saran wrap. The interior showed the same commitment to detail as every other cultural landmark in Russia. A long queue formed to offer a prayer in front of a small picture of Jesus. It seemed an extremely individualized experience. The visages of saints and important people in portraits hanging on the wall were noticeably different than they are in Catholic or Protestant traditions. There's something slightly unorthodox about Russian orthodoxy.Our main attraction for the day was a museum called the Kunst Kamera, the main anthropological museum of St. Petersburg. It proved difficult to enter. When we approached it from a main street, there was a small door marked “group entrance.” There was no one coming in or out, and it was too undistinguished of an entrance for such a large and significant building. We followed the building around down a side street. There was another, more conspicuous entrance. It too was labeled “group entrance.” We weren’t sure if the entrance was designed for us or for buses full of Russian school children. The queue was only a half dozen people or so, but they were lined up outside of the building waiting to get in so there were no officials to ask. We didn’t want to wait in line only to find that we didn’t qualify as a group. So we continued to walk around another side of the building down an even smaller street—a back alley, really. We found a small door marked “exit.” I’m not sure why it seemed to us that an exit was more promising than either of the entrances we’d found, but I think we were tired of inspecting doors. We tried it. The door opened, and we entered. At least that way we’d be inside.We wandered all the way through the lower level of the museum by the restrooms and the coat check only to eventually find our way back to the second “group entrance” we’d come across. This was what the people outside had been waiting to get into. We inquired with the guard, thinking it might be possible to sneak out through this door and join the line outside. Of course, it wasn’t. This was an entrance and therefore it is not in its nature to be utilized as an exit. So we walked back through the museum, back down the alley, and onto the side street. By the time we got back to the appropriate entrance the line was several dozen people long.The Kunst Kamera’s take on “anthropology” was more like a sort of human zoo or natural history museum. Each wing considered a different geographical area, and behind the glass of each case was a different tribe or people group. It was similar to the ethnography museum featuring the indigenous people of Russia in the contents of its displays, but it lacked the obvious sense of respect and admiration for its subjects. There were plastic life-sized figurines of people with exotic features and brown skin. Tools and primitive implements were arranged on the wall. It all had the feel of “isn’t this a curious specimen of a savage?” Not a good look for anthropology.Granted, material culture is difficult to interpret out of context (“What do you supposed they did with this baseball bat looking thing?”). But it really wasn’t put together in any compelling manner. The overall thesis of the museum was, “There are a great many places in the world and in each one of them the people make objects of various forms and complexions.” Not a terribly interesting or nuanced insight. It was like looking at a pile of bones and with an inscription that says, “Together these bones make a dinosaur. Use your imagination.” You don’t actually learn anything about the dinosaur from taking a casual look over an unstructured collection of femurs and teeth. It’s the same problem as a “Great Books” course you’d take in Freshman English. Yes, the collection is impressive. But it’s not about anything in particular. Really the only thing it successfully conveys is to exoticize the groups of people it features. It was heavily populated by tourists, too.I’d heard tell that there was an exceptionally peculiar exhibit in the museum but wasn’t availed of any details. I hadn’t thought much about it when I entered a wing innocuously labeled “First Scientific Collections.” I entered unaware. Before I could make note of the collection my attention was arrested by a thud and then an emerging circle of onlookers. A young girl, maybe thirteen or so, had just fainted. She was blond. Her mother was able to collect her off the floor and usher her into a chair by the window. A museum attendant came over to see if she was alright. I looked on at the excitement with interest. At first I didn’t actually associate the fainting with the display. I just figured that the girl had a condition in which she just keeled over from time to time. Or maybe she was eminently hung over. Who knows?But then I looked at the case that had temporarily relieved her of conscious bodily control. It was an exhibit featuring deformed fetuses, preserved in formaldehyde. I looked around and saw that the room was full of shelves with dead babies in jars, each with some striking defect, such as a comprehensive absence of limbs, or six eyes, or a hand where its ear is supposed to be. I would like to report that it’s not the single most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. But I can’t. It was the single most disturbing thing I've ever seen. However the Russians and the tourists alike seemed unmoved. They looked on with a certain detached curiosity, as if they were staring at a collection of exotic flowers rather than pickled dead babies. “Tasteless” seems like a harsh critique for a venerable institution such as the Kunst Kamera. But the presence of judicious and thoughtful presentation by the museum’s curators was very hard to detect.And with that imagery to contemplate, we took leave of St. Petersburg and boarded a night train bound for Moscow.Next Episode:Thanks for checking out Season 1 of Notes from the Field. If you’ve enjoyed it, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. I’m trying to do more of this kind of travel writing in the future. But as you can imagine, it’s hard to have these kinds of experiences while also holding down a job. Your subscription goes a long way toward helping me to do that. Use the link below, and you’ll get 50% off an annual subscription. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

The Idaho State Museum closed for renovations in 2014. After a multi-million dollar investment, the museum is scheduled to open October 13 with exhibits highlighting the state's legacy and uniqueness, as well as new exhibits accentuating the heritage of Native Americans from the region. Executive Director Janet Gallimore joins Idaho Matters to talk about the upgrades and what visitors can expect to see.