The Blue Star: A Novel

(2008, Little, Brown and Company) by Tony Earley, Samuel Milton Fleming, Associate Professor of English

It's been eight years since readers met the character of 10-year-old Jim Glass, the anchor of Earley's acclaimed debut novel, Jim the Boy. In The Blue Star, Jim, now 17, faces the life-altering decisions of young adulthood in 1941, as America inches closer to war. The New York Times' Janet Maslin calls Earley's prose "beguilingly crisp and unfettered" in this sequel that chronicles childhood's end.

Co. "Aytch": First Tennessee Regiment or a Side Show of the Big Show

(2007, Providence House Publishers) by Sam R. Watkins; edited by Ruth Hill Fulton McAllister, BA'68

When Ken Burns' The Civil War debuted on PBS in 1990, its viewers were treated to the authentic voice of Sam R. Watkins, chronicler of the "Maury Greys," whose memoir of his war experience was first published in 1882. This new edition incorporates images of Watkins' recently found handwritten manuscript, with his own proposed edits and additions overseen by his great-granddaughter, alumna McAllister.

Playing the Changes: Milt Hinton's Life in Stories and Photographs

(2008, Vanderbilt University Press) by Milt Hinton, David G. Berger and Holly Maxson

Bassist Milt Hinton is legendary as a musician whose career spanned seven decades of jazz history, but he also knew how to wield a camera. His photos document life on the road with Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday's last recording session, and jazz icons Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, among others. Many of his stories are included with his music on an enclosed CD.

Noah Walcutt, a 2008 engineering school graduate, won this year's $25,000 Margaret Wooldridge Hamblett Award with this interactive sculpture that combines art, music and engineering for therapeutic purposes.
Photo by Steve Green.

When the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Art Center was completed in 2005, it provided a dedicated home for the newly independent studio art department. Not long afterward a major in studio art was added to complement the minor that already existed. After three academic years in the building, Michael Aurbach, professor of art and director of undergraduate studies for the studio art program, still sings the new building's praises.

"It gives us a safe place to work," he explains, speaking literally. The new studios have proper ventilation and sinks, floors sealed to allow for clean-up, and appropriate quantity and placement of electrical outlets. Student and faculty studio space previously was housed in Cohen Memorial on the Peabody College campus. "Cohen was designed as a museum," says Aurbach. His studio, in which he worked on large-scale sculpture, was on Cohen's third floor. The building has no elevator. His back is happy to have a new building with 8-foot-tall double doors and elevators.

Since the studio art department relocated to a more central spot beside the Student Life Center, the major has grown to include about 30 students. Aurbach expects more growth, but he says the program's size is nice and the major is attracting students with diverse artistic interests.

Within, by Sandra Blain, is part of the "Tactile Clay: Structure and Texture" exhibit through July 15 at Space 204 in the Ingram Studio Art Center. The exhibit focuses on texture as more than surface decoration.
Photo by

The department's classes are also attracting more non-majors. "As Vanderbilt evolves--which it is--we're getting students who are more open to taking studio art classes," notes Aurbach. "I think art is one of the best vehicles for the general education of humanity."

Because the credits required for the studio art major are fairly unrestrictive, the major's students are able to study other subjects, which, Aurbach says, informs their creative work. In addition to training students as visual artists, the studio art major can also prepare students for a "regular" profession: One recent graduate from the pre-architecture track is now studying on scholarship at Harvard University.

Other perks include the center's permanent gallery space and a studio for each senior in the major, which is rare for an art program.

From the pleasing fountain splashing into a rockscape at its entrance to the natural light gracing its hallways to its well-equipped studios, the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Art Center is a welcome and well-used space for Vanderbilt's artists. Says Aurbach, "This is a place where, if students want to pursue their artistic interests, they can--and in a grand way."

Tom Kimmel, singer-songwriter and artist-in-residence for the "God in Music City" project, with artist Lisa Silver at the project's culminating concert at Second Presbyterian Church.
Photo by Steve Green.

One Saturday last February, a curious busload from Vanderbilt got a taste of that old-time religion--and many of the varieties of religion to be found in Nashville.

That day scholars involved with the "God in Music City" initiative watched the choir at Corinthian Baptist Church rehearse a rousing program, heard the organist at Christ Church Episcopal belt out a magnificent organ fugue, and visited stately houses of worship including Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and Congregation Micah. Robin Jensen, the Luce Chancellor's Professor of the History of Christian Worship and Art, led the tour.

"In the space of six hours, we experienced seven different structures and radically different kinds of music associated with substantially different theologies," says Allison Pingree, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching and one of three principal investigators of the God in Music City project. "Our goal of opening up understanding and breaking down barriers and stereotypes was happening that day."

God in Music City was an interdisciplinary class. It was a series of events including glimpses into the worlds of country music videos, gay Christian music and the blues; it was a double CD compiled and released by Greg Barz, associate professor of ethnomusicology and a principal investigator of the God in Music City project; and it was an experiment in team-teaching and experiential learning.

Odessa Settles was a featured artist during the final concert of the "God in Music City" project in April.
Photo by John Russell.

"I think the role that music-making plays in our houses of worship deserves our serious attention, and I think the God in Music City project is a huge step in the right direction," says Dale Cockrell, professor of musicology in the Blair School of Music.

God in Music City was one project of the Music, Religion and the South study group of the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, a transinstitutional center at Vanderbilt dedicated to developing, promoting and increasing faculty research at the intersections of religion and culture.

The God in Music City course was structured to expose students to as great a variety of religious musical expression as possible, and then help them sort it out.

"The class became a focus group that helped the professors learn something," says John McClure, the third principal investigator of the project and Charles G. Finney Professor of Homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School. "It's given me ideas for further projects."

Already there's talk of a book about the project. Pingree plans to explore the team-teaching employed in the class for a new project, and Barz founded a record label to release a God in Music City CD.

"This won't stop," says Volney Gay, co-director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture. "This train is moving down the tracks."

Find out more: www.godinmusiccity.org

Lane Denson, foreground, and Larry Taylor of the Monday Night Jazz Band.
Photo by Steve Green

When Lane Denson--Episcopal clergyman by day, cornet and flugelhorn player by night--started playing with the Monday Night Jazz Band, he hardly could have predicted how long it would last.

"We're a band of volunteers," Denson says of the group, which for almost 20 years has brought the music of the Great American Songbook to Nashville's west side. "Sometimes it amazes me we've played together for so long--that people who do something else for a living have stayed with it this way."

Denson co-founded the band when he was chaplain at St. Augustine's Chapel on the Vanderbilt campus in the late '80s. Peabody psychology professor Paul Dokecki brought his drums, English professor Emerson Brown played clarinet, and law professor Bob Covington joined on piano.

"The four of us started meeting at St. Augustine's, learning how to play together, getting our style," Denson remembers. "Monday night was the only night we could all make it. That's how we got the name."

The band's roster has changed over the years. Denson and Dokecki now are joined by guitarist Lee Maxwell, a Peabody alumnus; Garnett "G.R." Davis, who plays bass for the band and teaches tuba at the Blair School of Music; and Larry Taylor, a professional guitarist and bassist. (Pianist Ed Farley, professor of theology, emeritus, of Vanderbilt Divinity School, retired from the band this spring.) But the band's repertoire, the standards that dominated American popular music from the 1920s into the 1950s, has held steady.

"We play a lot of the great show music, like 'Take the "A" Train,' 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore,' 'Love Is Here to Stay' and 'Stardust,'" says Denson. "People usually like what they hear. They'll say, 'We didn't know anybody played this music here in Nashville.'"

Taylor, who played professionally for more than 20 years, seems to revel in the technical demands of the music. "It's sort of like doing a crossword puzzle every day," he says. "It improves your vocabulary. These are tunes with good construction. If you play them every day, you will improve the technique. I've been doing it so long, it's just part of me, I guess."

For almost 12 years the band played regular Monday night gigs at what might seem an unlikely venue: the commons area at Bellevue Center mall. But with the mall's impending closure this year, they've had to find a new home. This spring they started a weekly session at Caesar's Ristorante Italiano, a cozy place tucked into the corner of a strip mall a few miles south of the Vanderbilt campus.

They play on Tuesdays now, but, to paraphrase a classic, their name is here to stay.

Top: Dr. Milton Ochieng', left, celebrates with his brother, Fred, at Fred's white coat ceremony in August 2006. Right: The movie poster for Sons of Lwala
Photo by Dana Johnson.

One rainy evening 10 years ago, Patricia Opiyo, a pregnant woman from the remote village of Lwala, Kenya, went into labor with a breech birth.

"Her relatives put her in a wheelbarrow and pushed her to get to the main road to flag a ride to the hospital 40 kilometers away," recalls Dr. Milton Ochieng', MD'08, who was a teenager at the time, "but she hemorrhaged to death before they reached the highway." The unborn baby died, too.

That incident is one of the reasons Milton and his brothers, Fred and Maurice, who grew up in Lwala, have since toiled to fulfill their father's dream of building a health facility there. On April 2, 2007, that dream came true with the opening of the Lwala Community Health Clinic.

Now a much wider audience will hear their story. Barry Simmons' film, Sons of Lwala, which documents the story of the Ochieng' brothers and the Lwala clinic, premiered at a special fundraising showing at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) in March. The documentary will be shown in other cities to raise money and also may be entered at film festivals.

"We hope the film will help us raise enough money to fund the clinic for two years," says Milton.

During its first two months of operation, up to 1,500 patients streamed into the clinic. Civil unrest in Kenya has forced people to flee populated towns for rural areas, resulting in numbers swelling from around 60 patients a day to more than 100. As a result, the need for funding has increased.

Last December during the winter break, Milton, Fred and their sister, Flo, a second-year nursing student at St. Joseph's College of Nursing in Syracuse, N.Y., worked at the Lwala Clinic with a couple of student volunteers. One day a pregnant woman named Lillian entered.

"It was a breech birth," Milton says. "We tried to call a taxi, but with the violence in this part of Kenya, all the roads were blocked."

With a medical procedure book and cell-phone call to the obstetrician mother of one of the volunteers, Milton and Fred (a current Vanderbilt medical student) performed the first breech-birth delivery at the clinic. The result--a baby girl weighing nearly 8 pounds, born Dec. 30, 2007.

"Do you remember Patricia Opiyo, who died in that wheelbarrow years ago?" Fred asked.

Milton nodded. Her death and the helplessness he felt at the time were seared into his memory.

"Do you realize you just delivered Patricia's granddaughter?"

"I felt in that moment my father's dream had come full circle," says Milton. "We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go."

Find out more: www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/lwala and www.sonsoflwala.com

John Hunter, "Hear Me," linoleum block print

Vanderbilt senior Aimee Casey's oil painting "Explosion" was featured at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in December.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts exhibition Future/Now: Mid-State Art Majors featured the work of nine Vanderbilt students last winter among approximately 80 selected works by students in college or university art programs across Middle Tennessee. The exhibit included work by students Clay Carroll, Aimee Casey, Cassie Edwards, Deborah Figueroa-Cruz, John Hunter, Russell Lloyd, David McLeod, Amelia Spinney and Rachel Wang.

Participating schools in addition to Vanderbilt were the Appalachian Center for Craft/Tennessee Tech University, Austin Peay State University, Belmont University, Cumberland University, Lipscomb University, Fisk University, Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee State University, and Watkins College of Art and Design. Faculty representing the art departments at each school selected the works on view.

"I am pleased that we are now in the room as one of the top 10 curators," says Bridgette Kohnhorst, director of Great Performances at Vanderbilt. Kohnhorst will serve on the hub committee for two years beginning next January, meeting three times per year with other hub directors to review proposals, make funding recommendations and discuss program policy.

The National Dance Project is a grant program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, one of six regional arts agencies nationwide that funds and advocates creation and distribution of artistic expression.

Greg Barz, associate professor of ethnomusicology in the Blair School of Music, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Traditional World Music Album category for his album Singing for Life: Songs of Hope, Healing, and HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Singing for Life, released last February by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, features uplifting music from Uganda compiled by Barz. The CD shares the Singing for Life title with a 2006 book he wrote about the role music and storytelling is playing in efforts to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Proceeds from the CD's sales go to two agencies in Uganda, Meeting Point and the Integrated Development and AIDS Concern (IDAAC).

"I am thrilled about this recognition for what was already one of the most meaningful projects of my career," says Barz. "Music is a key weapon in the fight against AIDS in Africa, and the music on Singing for Life is also just really great African music."

Scott Schoenherr, "Times Totem," Diane and Sandy Besser Collection, Arizona State University Photo by Craig Smith

Sandy Besser, BA'58, has enjoyed a successful career in investment management, while earning national recognition as an art collector. Both pursuits took root almost simultaneously at Vanderbilt.

"I don't recall taking art courses or going to galleries," says Besser. "But I did have an art epiphany when I took a class in investment management taught by David Steine."

Steine, then professor of business administration, and his wife invited Besser to their house for dinner one evening, and the original art works displayed throughout the home made a lasting impression on the young student. "I remember it as being floor-to-ceiling art--and I became enamored of the idea of owning art myself if possible."

Not only did Besser find that owning art was possible, but it became a passion that informed his life from then on. A voracious collector since childhood (butterflies, postcards and swizzle sticks, to name a few), Besser's first art acquisition was a pair of drawings of ballet dancers he bought at an antique store in San Francisco after college. At about $5 for the pair, the drawings were overpriced, he now observes wryly. They were also drawn on such poor-quality paper that they eventually disintegrated.

But from these works, Besser developed a love for drawing that continues today and began to develop the philosophy that has made him one of the most respected art collectors in the country. "I will only buy a better piece than what I already have," he says. "I always trade up, not down."

Photo by Kate Russell

Over the years Besser's quest led him and his late wife, Diane, to amass a collection of 10,000 pieces of art. That number has dropped in recent years as Besser donates various pieces and whole collections to such prestigious museums as the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, Besser's home since 1997. His appetite for art is as varied as it is hearty, and Besser has collected extensively in several areas, including Asian, African and Latin American tribal art, contemporary-art teapots, contemporary Hispanic art, contemporary drawings and figurative ceramics. The latter two categories are the only ones in which Besser still actively collects.

Besser describes the art in his collection as "dark, challenging, and about what goes on in the world today." He has been honored as one of the top collectors in the country by Art & Antiques magazine and is credited with helping scores of new artists gain recognition in the competitive world of contemporary art.

More impressive than Besser's knowledge and patronage of art, however, is his obvious love for each piece he owns and each artist whose career he has supported. His home in Santa Fe is filled, like his Vanderbilt mentor's house, with art. "I guess I have about 1,500 pieces in my home right now," Besser says. "I've never stored art, and there are no pieces in the closet." There is, however, a hall of teapots with specially built shelves displaying the surreal and stylized ceramic vessels Besser loves, as well as other built-for-art areas of the home. There's nothing sterile or museum-like about the way all the art fits together--or the way in which it fits into Besser's life.

"There's a story behind every single piece in this house, and I don't have favorites," he says. "They are all my babies."

If you're having a conversation with Elizabeth Spencer, MA'43, the first thing you'll notice is her accent. It's one that is increasingly--and sadly--rare these days. To say that it's Southern is merely scratching the surface. It is old-fashioned, to be sure. Sophisticated. Educated. And certainly not heard in movies or on TV.

The second thing you'll notice is that she often tacks a question onto the end of her sentences: "Don't you agree?" or "Do you think so, too?" It's an effective tool that draws whomever she is speaking with into the conversation in much the same way that her prose draws you into her stories. She uses words the way an artist uses paint--creating stunning images that are easy to imagine with the mind's eye.

Here she describes a scene at a café in Florence from one of her most famous works, the novella The Light in the Piazza:

"A couple of retired German tourists, all but harnessed in fine camera equipment, sat at the foot of Cellini's triumphant Perseus, slumped and staring at nothing."

At last count Spencer had authored nine novels, seven collections of short fiction, a memoir and a play. She is also the latest recipient of the prestigious PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction, adding her name to a list that is peppered with Southern writers, including Peter Taylor and Eudora Welty. The award celebrated her most recent collection, The Southern Woman.

"The award just descended on me. It was for my whole body of work," Spencer says.

Although she is Southern to the core, Spencer has lived in other places, including Italy, where she traveled on a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and Montreal. While in Canada, Spencer taught and was writer-in-residence at Concordia University.

"I don't think that writing can be taught, but as somebody once said, 'It can be learned,' and I think that's a good way to put it. If you have a good teacher who can discern things, it's a great stimulation to a person who wants to write."

Spencer left Canada in 1986 for Chapel Hill, N.C., where she was the visiting professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina until 1992. She still makes her home there.

Spencer names Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren and William Faulkner among her favorite Southern writers.

"I think that Southern writers are different. The culture creates the person, and I think the South has had a different history and different culture. That may be fading now; we may all belong to one culture," she says. "But I think a lot of the modern Southern writers sound very Southern still. You can't ask an Irish writer to be anything like an English writer. It's the same in the South. It's a long tradition."

While Southern literature is where Spencer made her mark, it's certainly not the only genre she reads.

"I do my best to keep up, but then I'm drawn back into reading older things that I really love from the past. I read mystery stories sometimes, and I've been plowing my way through Proust. I read Proust and then I start all over again."

Even though she's in her 80s, Spencer isn't done with her writing yet.

"I don't write as much as I used to. I've done some stories, and I'm sort of gnawing away on a novel that doesn't want to finish, but I try to keep going."

To many musicians the piano accompanist is the equivalent of a second-string player, a backup to the real star. In fact, this couldn't be further from the truth. Accompanying provides the definitive service to musicianship. It is an art form unto itself.

Daphne Nicar is among the cadre of accompanists who lend their talents to the Blair School of Music on a regular basis. For the past eight years, Nicar has been playing the piano primarily to accompany singers--soloists, choral groups and opera performers. Each of these genres requires a specific technique, Nicar says.

"When you're doing an opera rehearsal, the job of the accompanist is not to follow the singer, but to follow the conductor--and that is harder for me, in a way," she says. "In opera you have to change your focus. Your leader is the conductor."

Professor Robin Fountain conducts many of Blair's operas. His method is to work with Nicar and the singers during the first week of musical rehearsals and early staging. He then leaves while the cast continues to work on the music only. Once the singers have learned all the music, Fountain returns to begin the staging rehearsals. The accompanist's challenge is to follow the conductor's directions whether or not he's in attendance.

Along with opera rehearsals, Nicar also plays the orchestral reductions (music originally written for other instruments and rescored for the piano) for students participating in concerto competitions. That, too, is its own animal. "You're trying to imitate what an orchestra would do, to be the oboe, the strings or the horns. There's a lot of tremolo and rumbling to make the piano sound like a full orchestra," explains Nicar. "Playing orchestral reductions requires a completely different technique than playing music specifically composed for piano and singer. It's not as physically pianistic, and it doesn't necessarily fit the hand."

Much of her work at Blair entails working with specific students on ensemble pieces in preparation for a recital. In those cases Nicar begins by sitting down with the singer and sight-reading the selected piece so they both share a feeling for its content and direction. After the singer has practiced on his or her own for a period of time, Nicar then begins discussing phrasing, tempo and breathing. An accompanist must give a singer time to breathe.

Nicar says, "From there we'll work on the shape of phrasing and word emphasis. Then after we've finished rehearsing, I'll tell them what consonants and vowels I couldn't understand, where we need to work on tempo--how fast and how loud. We'll discuss whether we've hit the mark stylistically. If it's a romantic song, there will be a lot of give and take in the tempo."

In other words, the accompanist is an active partner, not a sideline participant, in a musical performance. The skills of an accompanist are deemed so important that all Blair keyboard majors take classes in accompanying, during which they receive feedback and advice as they perform with an instrumentalist or vocalist.

Nicar says the beauty of accompaniment is that it is the consummate continuing education. "I wish more students wanted to do accompanying," she admits. "From the time I left college, I learned more about musical ideas and interpretations from my experience accompanying other musicians and singers than I ever learned as a soloist."

Rehearsing and performing with the José Limón Dance Company was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Vanderbilt Dance Program students. Photo by Steve Green

For a university that doesn't offer a dance major or minor, Vanderbilt attracts its fair share of dancers. In fact, more than 800 dancers from the Vanderbilt and Nashville communities take part in Vanderbilt Dance Program classes in ballet, jazz, modern, hip-hop and more. The thriving program, founded in the mid-1970s, serves as the main outlet for students wanting to train in dance while at the university.

"We have students who are very serious about pursuing a professional dance career, and we have students who simply want to satisfy their interest in dance while pursuing a Vanderbilt degree," says JoEl Logiudice, director of the Office of Arts and Creative Engagement. "The dance program is a way to bridge those two worlds--their passions with their careers."

When the renowned Limón Dance Company was added to last fall's Great Performances lineup at Vanderbilt, it provided an unprecedented opportunity for a full-fledged dance residency, allowing selected students to audition, train and perform alongside company members for a performance of Limón's Missa Brevis.

The José Limón Dance Company was founded in 1946 by Limón, a Mexican immigrant who specialized in a style of modern dance that was related to ballet, but used strong movements to express emotion and tell stories in abstract and unique ways. The New York Times called Limón "the finest male dancer of his time."

Limón created Missa Brevis (it means "short mass") after a 1957 trip to Poland, where he witnessed the Polish people's ongoing efforts to rebuild after the devastation of World War II. A National Endowment for the Arts grant supporting the reconstruction of American dance masterworks at the nation's universities enabled Vanderbilt to bring Limón's Missa Brevis to campus.

Limón Dance Company's artistic director, Carla Maxwell, traveled to Nashville to conduct auditions, which included a two-day workshop to orient students in the Limón technique. Auditions yielded five students to dance the roles of Missa Brevis' "corps," or chorus, and two understudies. For more than two weeks, the students trained under Clay Taliaferro, a former Limón principal dancer, with four to five hours of rehearsal several times during the week plus eight more on weekends.

Arts and Science senior Julia Byrd, a biology and pre-med major who has been dancing since age 10, says the long rehearsals felt like lengthy private lessons. "It was great to be at that level of professionalism."

"The most valuable thing I learned is to 'make the movement make sense.' Clay repeated this phrase over and over in rehearsals," says Schwannah McCarthy, a third-year law student chosen for the residency. "I have a tendency to get very cerebral when performing a dance, but the reality is, when you initiate movement in one part of the body, then another part of the body moves naturally in response. I learned to let go and trust that my body is 'on the job.'"

Limón Dance Company members spent a week rehearsing with students, culminating in public performances by the full ensemble on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

"The great thing was that students were not an opening act or a separate piece," says Bridgette Kohnhorst, assistant director of art and cultural programs and curator of the Great Performances Series. "They were enveloped into the ensemble of professional dancers, dancing side by side in the true spirit of a residency."

There was a time in the not-toodistant past when educators viewed pencils with erasers as crutches for lazy students. In the following years, other advancements like calculators and spellcheck raised similar concerns. Now a new trend has found its way from the Web into the classroom. Call it "webspeak"or "slanguage" ... English purists call it a big problem.

But Kevin Leander, associate professor of language and literacy at Peabody College, isn't so sure."Often what happens in education is that there's a huge overreaction to any kind of technology. But literacy and technology have always been tied together in one way or another, ever since papyrus and scrolls."

In slanguage, the writer uses abbreviations and shortcuts as a matter of course. It is especially rampant in text messaging, where space is limited."See you later"becomes "CUL8R."And "NALOPKT,"Leander's favorite, is "not a lot of people know that."

Certainly, slanguage is not absolutely correct-- but is it wrong? "Surface level correctness is often the feature people focus on when they think about literacy," says Leander. "So they become more concerned that someone can spell correctly rather than the fact that the person actually has ideas to communicate."

Leander believes some of the expressions will end up in the dictionary one day.

"One study talked about how children who send lots of text messages demonstrate increased levels of phonetic awareness and linguistic creativity. From that, one could say that texting on mobile phones makes writers better because they are experimenting with language."

It's easy to imagine that crossword puzzles have existed for centuries--that they were an amusing diversion for crusading knights or monks killing time between illuminating manuscripts. But they've been around for less than a century, having first appeared in the New York World in 1913.What started as a fad quickly became an accepted component of newspapers around the country, the notable exception being The New York Times,which viewed the puzzles as unworthy pastimes. In 1942 the Times broke down and finally published its first Sunday puzzle. That puzzle quickly became the standard by which others are judged.

For those who create puzzles, having one published in the Times is quite an accomplishment-- one achieved by Byron Walden, BA'85, with just his second submission. Walden, who teaches math at Santa Clara University, started making his own puzzles about seven years ago.

"A lot of people in the 'numbers' professions do crossword puzzles," he says. "I see the words as algebraic objects.To me, it's about manipulating the letters as opposed to something like poetry where you're thinking of words as whole units and trying to put them together." Puzzles printed in The New York Times follow strict guidelines and rules. The puzzles get progressively more difficult during the week, with Saturday's being the most challenging. Walden also is a regular contributor to The Onion, which started running puzzles last year.Most puzzle writers submit on a freelance basis and, says Walden, people who make a living creating crossword puzzles number in the "low dozens."

Walden typically creates harder puzzles, sometimes with a theme, sometimes without. He spends six to seven hours on each creation.

"I always like little phrases that have strange letters in them. Someone working the puzzle might think,'Nothing could go there,' and then once they get it, they think, 'Oh yeah, of course.'"

His favorite clue of all time: "pitched like a girl." The answer: "falsetto."

Patrick Alexander, BS'00, has won the 2007 Student Academy Award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Narrative category for Rundown, a dark thriller about a television news reporter that Alexander wrote and directed as his thesis film at Florida State University.

Sam Friedlander, BA'00, made it into the top four on Fox Television's On the Lot, the Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg reality show that pitted aspiring filmmakers against one another to win a development deal with DreamWorks Studios.

The 1968 Democratic National Convention was an iconic event in American history. Young Vietnam War protestors clashed with Chicago police while millions witnessed their battles on live television. Eight protestors were tried for conspiracy in a circus-like atmosphere.

A new film about the event, associate produced by Christopher Keene, JD'96, opened this year's Sundance Film Festival. Using archival footage, trial transcripts and animation, Chicago 10 brings the incident to life for a new generation of moviegoers.

Academy Award-winning director Brett Morgen dubbed the film Chicago 10 to include Bobby Seale, attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, and the Chicago Seven defendants: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner.

As a law student, Keene says, he gained tremendous respect for constitutional law after taking a course from James Blumstein, University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy."It opened my eyes to how lucky we are to live in this country. I'm a huge believer in the right to free speech and the right to protest."

Keene's legal training has proven useful in film production, which involves negotiating agreements, making contracts, and gaining rights to intangible property.While working on Chicago 10, "I tried to find every photo and frame of footage related to this subject and negotiated for the right to include all of it in the film," he says.

Keene's first foray into show business came during his second year at Vanderbilt when he interned with Creative Artists Agency's music division in Nashville. "It showed me how much fun it would be to work in that world."

After stints with a Los Angeles law firm and the Endeavor talent agency, Keene was hired by Morgen to be associate producer for The Kid Stays in the Picture. A biopic about the rise, fall and rise again of legendary Hollywood movie producer Robert Evans, the film garnered numerous critical accolades, including three Best Documentary awards and recognition as one of the 10 best films of 2002.

As head of the Archer Norris law firm's entertainment practice, Keene has leveraged his film contacts to build a client list of actors, writers, directors, producers, publishers and media financiers.

"I feel privileged to have the opportunity to help people I admire create great work," he says. "It's a wonderful way to spend a career."

Chicago 10 is scheduled for release in theaters in February 2008 to coincide with the event's 40th anniversary.

Musical explorers the Kronos Quartet will take the stage at Ingram Hall on March 14, 2008, at 8 p.m. as part of Vanderbilt's Great Performances series to perform Sun Rings, an evening-length, multimedia work in 10 movements that will feature choirs from the Blair School of Music. The piece, commissioned for Kronos by NASA and others, has been performed in London, San Francisco, Calgary,Tucson (Ariz.) and Boston.

Bill Ivey and Steven Tepper, director and associate director, respectively, of the Vanderbilt Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, had worked with ArtsJournal.com and conference organizers to create the blog. For two weeks leading up to the conference, 12 bloggers jumpstarted discussion about the upcoming session's topic with their postings, in hopes of preparing conference attendees for the live blogging session June 21. The blog can be accessed at www.artsjournal.com/league.

"This was a chance to see if audiences could engage more deeply in the conversation if they had the opportunity to react, post questions and note potential contradictions in the middle of listening," says Tepper.

Muhammad Yunus, PhD'71, has been called many things: visionary, world leader, Nobel Prize winner. Now there's a new addition to the list: rock star. Yunus has teamed with the European musical duo The Green Children in support of their efforts to promote micro-credit, education and health care.He even makes an appearance in a music video, which can be viewed at www.thegreenchildren.org. To date, the group has raised more than $450,000, which will be used to build an eye hospital in Bangladesh.

Mel Ziegler is the new chairman of the studio art department at Vanderbilt. Ziegler had served on the University of Texas-Austin faculty since 1997.He was a member of the City of Austin Arts Commission from 2000 to 2006 and is known for his site-specific public art. Ziegler's body of work in collaboration with late artist Kate Ericson is the subject of a major exhibit at the Kansas City Art Institute through October, which then moves to the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati from Nov. 10 to Jan. 13, 2008. Ziegler and Ericson worked together on major projects for the Seattle transit system and the historic district of Charleston, S.C.

Visual Arts

At first glance, the basement of Sylvia Hyman's home looks much like any other clay artist's studio. A shelf running along the wall holds jar after jar of oxides, silicates, fluxes and other materials used in the preparation of ceramic glazes. A large kiln sits in one corner, and two long work tables stand in the middle of the room. One of the tables holds a seemingly random stack of books: an art history volume, a suspense novel titled Danger Music, a copy of Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. A crossword puzzle book sits nearby, on a neatly arranged breakfast tray.

Peer more closely, though, and you'll do a double take: These aren't books at all. They are made entirely from clay.

The art of Sylvia Hyman,MA'63--masterful trompe l'oeil sculptures--uncannily mimics objects from real life.Whether taking the form of books, boxes, baskets, printed scrolls, letters or playing cards, each piece skillfully deceives the eye.

To succeed as art, trompe l'oeil painting and sculpture must do more than simply replicate an object or scene. In Hyman's case, her ceramic works convey playfulness and joy, mixed with sly consideration. For her these sculptures operate on a number of levels, but one central conceit is the idea of communication.

"My first ceramic trompe l'oeil works were done for fun," she explains.

"In the 1960s I made dancing banana skins and partially eaten fruits on brightly colored, glazed plates. Then in the 1980s I made some porcelain birthday cakes, fortune cookies and cantaloupes for gag gifts. The more serious works that began in the '90s--expanding on the idea that fortune cookies carry concealed information--started with scrolls that imitated diplomas and certificates.

"Now my work has grown to encompass the myriad ways that humans communicate, not only through language, but also with signs and symbols such as musical notes, maps, drawings, diagrams and puzzles. I'm enthralled by the way that humans, through the centuries, have devised ways to convey thoughts by making marks on stone, papyrus, clay, paper, etc."

For Hyman, achieving precision and detail in her works is the result of a constant learning process. "Almost every piece I make involves trial and error. Sometimes I have to remake parts of a sculpture or even rethink the whole arrangement of the various parts as my works become more complex."

Hyman's art was the subject of an exhibit at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts, which ran through Oct. 7.

Hyman turns 90 this year, and the Frist show was only the most recent honor in an energetic career that has seen her work travel the globe, with exhibitions on three continents. Her ceramic pieces sit in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, and nearly a dozen other institutions.

"Sylvia has kept herself young and engaged in the world of art in a way that transcends generations," says independent curator and arts writer Susan Knowles, BA'74, MLS'75, MA'86.

"She has been a great role model for other artists here because she stands up for herself as an artist, she's interested in what's happening creatively in Nashville, and she's willing to give her time to things she feels are important. She has a real sense of justice and fair play."

(A longer version of this article was originally published July 15, 2007, in The Tennessean.)

Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians and Gays in Black Churches
(Pilgrim Press)
by Horace L.Griffin, MA'93, PhD'95.

"Their Own Receive Them Not cuts through the Gordian knot of homophobia in the Black Church with compelling, substantive arguments," comments Sylvia Rhue, director of religious affairs and constituency development for the National Black Justice Coalition in Washington, D.C. "This groundbreaking work has the potential to move hearts and minds toward the more loving and inclusive community for which we have been praying."

Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace
(Berrett-Koehler),
by Bruce Barry, professor of management and sociology.

While Americans are protected from censorship by the government, no laws exist to protect free speech in the workplace. In Speechless, Bruce Barry guides readers through the crucial roles of law, convention and culture in limiting free speech in the workplace. He argues that freedom of speech in the workplace is excessively and needlessly limited, and advocates changes to law and management practices that would expand and protect employee rights without jeopardizing employer interests.