WYSO will broadcast its MLK documentary at noon and 7:00 p.m. today. You also can listen to an on-demand stream:

In 1965 Dr, Martin Luther King gave the commencement speech at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Ten year-old Jalyn Jones Roe was there and that day changed her life. Roe’s story will be heard as WYSO public radio presents Dr. King’s address, in its entirety.

I’ve been heart-broken since the disappearance of my insouciant cat, Colette, on Friday night. She was last seen in the vicinity of the former Village Building (also called Union School House) in Yellow Springs. I didn’t find her at Greene County Animal Control on Sunday. I hope the neighborhood red-tailed hawk didn’t grab her, although I think she was as much of a threat to the hawk as vice versa.

Colette is 1 to 2 years old, a friendly female cat. She was spayed in March 2010 and may still show surgery scars. She is gray on top with black stripes (a gray tabby) with white below and white paws. Her tail is gray with black horizontal stripes. She’s quick to purr, and her vocalization sounds a lot like a Siamese cat. I think she sounds like Lauren Bacall after too many cigarettes.

I don’t have a photo of Colette, but she resembles the cat above. The hair length and color  pattern is similar with the difference that Colette has gray patches on both eyes.

So please help me find her! Email me at:

mark (at) yellowsprings20 (dot) com

or leave a message on my Google Voice number at 937-696-9455. Many thanks!

I don’t know whether this painting is in the Robert Whitmore exhibition mounted now at Antioch College’s Herndon Gallery, but there are few Whitmore images on the web, and it would be a travesty to write about this influential Yellow Springs painter without some sort of visual representation of his work. Licking Valley is part of the permanent collection at the Dayton Art Institute, and it graced the cover of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, in 2008. I first wrote about it then:

I had the privilege to know Bob Whitmore at the end of his long, creative life. His son John is a good friend. They were my neighbors when I lived at the Mill. I was one of a group of helpers who cared for Bob at home after he broke a hip in 1978. I remember sitting with him one winter afternoon when he talked and dozed in a bed just a few feet from his studio. The wall beside the bed was covered with the paintings he kept for himself over a 60-year career. One of them, a bright seascape painted at Cape Cod in1919, hangs in my bedroom today.

I would have liked to attend the opening of “Robert Whitmore: A Devoted Sense of Place” on April 10, but I was in Toronto for a wedding. I saw John at the YS farmer’s market last Saturday. He told me that the exhibition runs until sometime in May. Located in South Hall on the Antioch campus, The gallery is open from 1:00–4:00 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays and 7:00–9:00 p.m. on Thursdays.

About Robert Whitmore [via A Yellow Springs Blog]:

Robert H. Whitmore was born in Dayton in 1890 and attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1913-1917 where he studied drawing, painting, sculpture and anatomy, as well as architecture, illustration, and woodcarving. Whitmore taught at the Dayton Art Institute from 1920-23 where nineteen of his works remain in the permanent collection. During this period he developed his printmaking skills as a member of the Dayton Society of Etchers. With his wife, Elizabeth Ann Bennett, and their five children he lived in a house outside of Yellow Springs that was formerly owned by Horace Mann, first President of Antioch College

In 1925 Arthur Morgan, president of Antioch College, asked Whitmore to join the Department of Art where he enjoyed a long and distinguished teaching career until his retirement in 1955. Whitmore was a man of many talents and he remained an active artist up until his death at age 89 in 1979. In the words of Don Wallis, from an earlier exhibition review: “As an artist he grounded his work—as he grounded his life—in his devoted sense of place.”

The Jafagirls gave me a guided walking tour of their textile art installations. Some of it is in this video montage, and some of it I had seen (and touched) before, but I had no sense of the scope of their project until they took me around the block, literally. I’ll have more to say about it. For now, I am thrilled that I don’t have to pine for street art in Paris (à la Miss Tic and the Ethics of Love). I can stroll anytime to the end of Dayton Street. It’s a perfect place for flânerie. Thanks, Corrine and Nancy!

Brendan sent me a text message this morning about a live webcam of bald eagles nesting at Eastwood Lake in Riverside. One search on the web and I found a Dayton Daily News story and the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery’s eagle page:

Throughout the 2010 nesting season, the Boonshoft Museum will host live video streaming of Dayton’s resident Eagle pair “Jim” and “Cindy,” and provide updates on the couple using input of the Eastwood Eagle Watchers.

Designed to bring a birds-eye view of these iconic raptors to the public, EagleCam is perched on a tower nearly 800 feet away from the Eagle’s nest. As the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act makes it illegal to disturb Bald Eagles in any way, EagleCam was planned to bring images of these amazing birds to the public in a safe way, providing unique access to Eagles in the wild.

Watch live EagleCam

A SLAPP, or “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” is a little known but widespread threat to the First Amendment. SLAPPs are meritless suits brought by companies, individuals and sometimes the government, not to win, but to silence critics. Congress is now considering federal anti-SLAPP legislation. OTM producer Nazanin Rafsanjani investigates.

My daughter Chenoa and granddaughter Teagan came to visit for Easter. I was so pleased when Chenoa reminisced about her Grandmother Willis, who shared my conviction that her granddaughter looked like the model for Renoir’s Girl With a Watering Can. Chenoa said to Teagan, “Your Great-Grandmother Willis was a fine lady.” I was so touched to think of my mother in this light, as a chrished great-grandmother.

I asked Chenoa to do some Yellow Springs photography for this site. Hopefully she will do the first shoot in May when everything is greener than it is now. And, of course, I’ll amuse the baby while she works.

This photo was taken by Miranda Lloyd, Chenoa’s childhood friend who is now an artist in Brooklyn.

Chefs from five Yellow Springs restaurants created a signature “Yellow Springs” pasta dish for last year’s “Spring Into The Arts” fête. In these recipes, saffron or cheddar cheese equal “Yellow” and rotini equals “Springs.” I can’t say this a culinary tradition here, but maybe it should become one. Don’t watch this video on an empty stomach! [thanks to beanyhead1]

Yellow Springs, Ohio – The small town only has a total of 3675 people and the nearest city from here is Dayton which is only 21 miles. Since 1852 when Antioch College had built at here, yellow spa town has become the guiding light of the artists, activists and thinkers. People can freely display their knitting work in the town to show the unique public art, tourists can come here to feel the freedom and self-released smoothly.

This sounds like something was lost in translation. Maybe it was written and edited by algorithm. Here’s the rubric for making the list:

In the United States, there are some small towns, which are so cool. The populations of these small towns are less than 10000, but their cuisine, culture and quality of life are so sufficient and even can compare with big cities. At the same time, the tranquility and comfort environment they provided can’t be found in big cities. Their simplicity and mystery have attracted thousands of foreign tourists. Here are four famous small towns you can choose to visit.

Last summer, Outside magazine called Yellow Springs one of America’s best small towns.