PresRelease

Alfredo Senior, La Fiesta del Centenario (1944)
There’s a great exhibit at the Benton of 20^th Century paintings and other works by Dominican artists, all reflecting the theme of the merengue, an important element in Dominican art and culture.  You should make an appointment with yourself to go see it.  Read more about it online.
In case you aren’t familiar with the merengue, it is a dance-and-music form originating in the Dominican Republic.  Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo promoted merengue as the DR’s national music and dance style.  The dance remains strong and popular today – long after Trujillo’s demise – in the DR and Haiti, in Venezuela, and also on the east coast of the U.S., especially in New York City.  Merengues are up-tempo arrangements in 2/4 time, often performed by what is called a conjunto band.  Many American folk musicians draw inspiration from ‘conjunto music,’ the music of the DR, and its variations in Mexico.
Jaime Colson, Merengue (1938)
There’s a youTube of Jennifer Lopez and Johnny Ventura doing the merengue on TV.
But back to the Benton.  These forty works include paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculpture, video, and popular graphics that span the 20th century and examine the evolving artistic styles practiced by Dominican artists to celebrate the island’s most important musical and dance form. And on Saturday, February 14, from 2–3 pm, the Benton is hosting merengue lessons right in the Museum with dance instructor Oswaldo Tirano of Grass Hopper Arts Dance Studio. All are welcome, and admission is free!  A great Valentine’s Day treat!

From left Helen Mesi of Catering Services, Karen Logan of the School of Pharmacy,
Lynn Zayachkiwsky of the President’s Office, and Laura Webb of the Alumni Association,
carpool to campus from a commuter lot in Bolton. Photo by Peter Morenus
My assistant Lynn Zayachkiwsky and her car-pooling group are featured in the Advance in an article on staff car-pooling at the Storrs campus.  In the picture, Lynn is the one right under the “Pan” on the Peter Pan bus.  It looks like she’s carrying a television set.The article is about UConn’s Carpool Tool, which celebrates its second anniversary this month.  It’s a web-based match-up program, where you can find other people in your area who are looking for a car-pool opportunity.  It’s simple and it works.  There are more than 250 people currently listed on the site, and dozens more have joined for a while, removing their names when they found a passenger.
And carpooling is making a difference, as commuters account for 8.26 percent of the University’s total greenhouse-gas inventory at the Storrs campus.  We have a lot more incentive to consider ride-sharing when gasoline is around $4.50 a gallon.  But even with today’s lower prices, it still makes very good sense.  And it’s kind of like on-line dating.  If you would like to get on board, go to www.hr.uconn.edu, find Carpool Tool in the ‘Helpful Links,’ and add your info (you’ll need your Net ID and password to get in – just like eHarmony).
Perhaps we need a logo for the Carpool Tool.  Here’s one idea, a well-circulated photo from the internet:

And here’s another…

UConn alum Lara Herscovitch of north Guilford has been appointed Connecticut’s official State Troubadour for 2009 and 2010 by the Committee on Culture and Tourism. Lara notes that she ‘narrowly escaped law school’ after she received an M.S.W. from UConn in 1995. She’ll be performing March 20 at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown. She has three CDs and is working on a fourth. You can read about her on her own website and there’s an article about her in the January 3 Middletown Press.
Need a short break from working differential equations or getting through Volume 1 of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time? Go here for a musical interlude with our State Troubadour.

UConn’s Angraecum, also called the Comet Orchid, is blooming today in the EEB Greenhouses. I just found out about it in an email from Clinton Morse, Plant Growth Facilities Manager in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.  I’m taking the liberty of quoting Clinton’s email here:

Although the Origin of Species is the book Charles Darwin is most widely remembered for, he also authored a half dozen books on various botanical subjects, including one on orchid fertilization released in 1862 – From that book:

I fear that the reader will be wearied, but I must say a few words on the Angræcum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travellers in Madagascar. A whip-like green nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. In several flowers sent me by Mr. Bateman I found the nectaries eleven and a half inches long, with only the lower inch and a half filled with very sweet nectar. What can be the use, it may be asked, of a nectary of such disproportional length?

We shall, I think, see that the fertilisation of the plant depends on this length and on nectar being contained only within the lower and attenuated extremity. It is, however, surprising that any insect should be able to reach the nectar: our English sphinxes have probosces as long as their bodies: but in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!

Indeed, the concept of such a moth was scoffed at until 1903 when a nocturnal hawkmoth – Xanthopan morgani praedicta – was discovered with a coiled proboscis capable of reaching that elusive nectar reward in Darwin’s Orchid, also known as the Comet Orchid.

Our specimen is in bloom today in the EEB Greenhouses along with a photograph of the hawkmoth.  We encourage you to stop down to the greenhouses today to see this plant in person.  The blooms are relatively short-lived and with tomorrow’s storm on the horizon, I think today may be the best opportunity to view and/or photograph this plant for yourself.

The greenhouses will be open our normal hours until 4pm this afternoon.  The Angraecum orchid is on display in the first greenhouse – feel free to ask staff if you have any questions.

EEB Angraecum webpage: http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/200400255.html – images will be updated later today…

The New London Day ran a story yesterday featuring our Husky Ambassadors from the Avery Point campus, who participated in community outreach projects in the New London area. On Friday night, students worked at the New London Community Meal Center – the Center currently provides lunch five days a week and dinner six days a week. Other students worked at the New London Homeless Hospitality Center at St. James Episcopal Church at 76 Federal Street.

Then on Saturday, students helped with a Habitat for Humanity build on Davis Farm Road. They helped build a deck and installed insulation, and I suspect wish they had worn those leather carpenter tool belts.

Dana Jensen photo

This photo from Dana Jensen at The Day shows Janice Welch of Guilford, Peter Tramont of Groton, Michelle Biron of Thomaston and Morgan Fields of Lebanon, at work installing joist hangers for the deck. That’s Janice wielding the hammer. What I can’t tell from the picture is whether Peter is holding the ladder for her or trying to knock her off the ladder so that he can get a turn to drive nails. The house will look something like this when it’s finished in March:

Other students who participated on these projects were Willythssa Pierre-Louis, Isabella Pilato, Marissa Fahlberg, Christian Fox, Michelle Slater, Harrison Pollack, Jeanette Pace, Jillian Sipperly, and Rebecca Impellitteri. And thanks to Amy Asmus, assistant women’s basketball coach for UConn-Avery Point. I’m always gratified when I learn about our UConn students reaching out to their communities, and I encourage others to get involved like these Avery Point students are.