America Now at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly

 

Montserrat College of Art Gallery
23 Essex Street
Beverly, MA 01915
Phone: 978.921.4242 x1204 

gallery@montserrat.edu

 

Alec Soth, Peter's Houseboat, Winona, MN, exhibition print 

America Now

February 5 – April 10, 2010

The current show in Montserrat College of Art's main gallery is an extensive photography exhibit featuring the works of six technically skilled artists.  It is called America Now, and the title reflects the subject with accuracy.  The subjects have a variety of range: the poverty of urban South Philadelphia by Zoe Strauss.  A slaughtered elk in the wilds of a winter aspen grove in Idaho by Laura McPhee.  A trailer home in twilight, its reflecting insulation stained with the oncoming dusk while an electric reindeer blurs the image with a nod by Alec Soth.   All the photographs have striking similarities despite the differences in subject.  Stark, hard beauty links them all as well as a disenchantment with and decay of the American Dream.  Loneliness grips the  subjects and yet the photography shows an unflinching in-depth connection between photographer and subject, and this is literally a saving grace.  Would that we all could look this hard at the country around us and find a sympathy and beauty this meaningful.

 

 

Laura McPhee, Sagebrush and Grass in an Irrigated Field, Fourth of July Creek Ranch, Custer County, ID, 2004, chromogenic print

 

Directions from the Salem Inn

Upon exiting the Inn, take a left on Summer St.  Take your first immediate left and continue across the major intersection.  (You should pass the post office on your right).  Follow this street until you come to a four-way stop. Take a left on Hawthorne Blvd. (Rte 1A north).  Follow 1A north into Beverly; this will take you across the Beverly-Salem bridge.  Once in Beverly, the road forks into two main roads.  Take the one on your right (Cabot St.)  You will no longer be on Rte 1A.  Follow Cabot Street into downtown Beverly and take a right at the Rte 22 sign.  Montserrat's main building is about two blocks up on your right.  The gallery is free.

 

2000 Words About Salem

I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends visit last week.  Jim, a fine writer and critical thinker, was kind enough to write a guest post for the Salem Inn Blog.

 

2000 Words About Salem

I’m embarrassed to say that up until a week ago, I had never been to Salem. Let me modify that, I had a business meeting there several years ago that lasted about two hours, but I had never been there just to relax and look around.  I had never been to Salem to see Salem.  Recently, thanks to the new economy, relaxing and looking around have become my favorite pastimes and I’m here to tell you that Salem is worth every valuable minute of your time. 

Boston, my hometown, is a messy place to drive.  The legendary traffic might gradually slow to a crawl on the interstate. A five-minute trip can become a forty-five minute curse, and you’ll never find out why. Parking is hard to find or expensive, sometimes both and never neither.   In Salem, the locals think traffic is heavy when they get stuck at the same light twice.  They have a point, and I’ve heard it gets much worse in the month of October, but I was up there recently during midweek and I can tell you, the lack of traffic alone made me feel like I was on vacation. It wasn’t rural calm.  Nope, there’s plenty happening, people going here and there, obviously an industrious place with lots of restaurants and shops, things to do and lots of people doing them, maybe a delay when a parking lot empties, but traffic?  Not a problem. And parking? Plentiful.

Truth be told, I had mixed feelings about Salem.  It might seem impossible to have feelings about a place I had never been, but Salem is part of our national consciousness.  Most of us learn at a very early age, before we are even capable of understanding, that Salem is that notorious colonial place where a real “witch hunt” took place. Foolish young girls playing on the fears and superstitions of an entire community claimed that they were cursed by some of the townspeople who they didn’t like.  Religious extremism and group hysteria combined to drive people mad and blind them to their own hypocrisy while they sought scapegoats to purge themselves.  The girls were eventually discredited, but not before several innocent people were “convicted” and hung for their “crimes.”  Today, it seems impossible to imagine.  And since I paid attention to history I asked myself, what was wrong with the people of Salem? 

During the decades after the witch trials, New England grew into its heyday, a world-class center of industry, whaling, importing, exporting and fishing.  Capitalizing on its own fine harbor, albeit small by later standards, Salem became one of New England’s wealthiest seaports, which was saying a lot.  By 1790 it was the sixth largest city in America.

After the decline of New England’s industrial importance and the need for deeper and bigger harbors, Salem gradually became a cultural and financial backwater.  A third class cousin to Boston which had already taken a back seat to New York, Salem would eventually realize that it could make money on its heritage, its wits and charm and on its historic shame. Through clever marketing, Salem became and is today the Halloween capital of the nation as if its witch trials bear a resemblance or are somehow related to our fastest growing costumed holiday.  The entire month of October is taken up with a pasteurized, polished, well-publicized and fantastic illusion that has absolutely nothing and everything to do with Salem’s sordid past.  If you’re interested in that sort of thing, I hear it’s quite a show.

Frankly, for me, it was a reason not to go.  I am not a gawker. I don’t want to stare at the hideous. I am not a big fan of Halloween. Why would I go to that place?  Of course, my denial of Salem, based on vague notions and faulty logic, was as silly as Salem’s promotion of itself. Perhaps Salem is to blame for me not knowing it, but the reality of Salem is far different from its image, and I’d say, far better. 

We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and checked into the Salem Inn, an historic brick structure of three adjoining townhouses which was originally owned by Captain Nathaniel West, one among hundreds of well researched and interesting Salem characters, himself a victim of a very public and particularly sordid divorce trial.  Because of our national obsession with new and better, in many towns West’s townhouse would stand out as a unique historic feature.  Not so in Salem.  Perhaps it was the shame of the witch trials, but more likely it was the sheer magnitude of Salem’s wealth, whatever the case, Salem got this part of its historic preservation completely right.  West’s house and history, although very fine and interesting, are just another dot on a thoroughly researched map of perhaps the finest historic district in the United States!  The McIntire Historic District, so named because many of its premier examples are the work of Architect and Housewright, Samuel McIntire, is an area of over four hundred Federal era homes around the Inn that have been preserved and maintained, many in their original splendor.  To be sure, some of these homes are museums, but by and large they are living, vibrant 21st century domiciles that do not reek of mold or dust.  Salem is alive! 

As if that weren’t enough, there are three other historic districts in Salem: Derby St., Lafayette St. and Washington Square.  Although none of these districts are contiguous, Salem is so conscious of its heritage that when walking from one district to another you’ll be hard pressed to know when you’re out of an historic area. Homes are often and prominently labeled with construction dates, builder, homeowner and/or the trade or profession in which they worked.

Without consulting a guidebook, my wife and I began to get an idea of who these people were, what they did for a living and what kind of community Salem was, but unlike at an historic re-creation or in Boston, we were not being spoon-fed a scripted story, or conducted on a history trail that is burdened by the intensely modern city around it.  With the help of a couple of brochures from the Inn’s supply, we imagined the streets, unchanged except for their surfaces, gauged the proximities, we spent the entire day on foot, and considered the tradesmen, whose lucrative work might have seemed hopelessly archaic except that the smells of the very same sea still fill the streets of Salem.  And a tall sailing ship sits at one of its wharfs. 

Not your typical coastal village with miniature streets,  Salem grew up as a commercial hub, with wide avenues and a thriving commercial center, the place where the region’s great traders made their homes.  These were not crusty old fishermen.  They were young, educated, powerful, smart, handsome, and brave men.  They were also despicable, cutthroat, scandalous and depraved men. In short, they were in some ways just like us, but they were more capable.  They moved mountains of goods and resources by sea on sailing ships. They amassed great wealth.  Walk around historic Salem, you’ll see where they lived, and guess what, all the sights are free. The traders already paid for it.

Before you exhaust yourself, check in at the Peabody Essex Museum.  This will cost you a little bit of money, but it is well worth it.  It is certainly one of the state’s finest museums.  It is well-staffed. The curators and other personnel are professional and courteous; there is no barrage of info or herding. We saw one art exhibit and an artifact display, but I most enjoyed the Yin Yu Tang House, the premier exhibit in the museum’s permanent collection.  First I want to point out that this house, an actual home built and lived-in in China up until 1980, is very aptly suited to the museum because of Salem’s interest in and preservation of its own old homes.

The Yin Yu Tang house was built around 1800 and was the continuous home of eight generations of the Huang family before being sold and transported in its entirety to Salem. The Huangs were shopkeepers and tradesmen, not the wealthy aristocrats of Salem, but still a respectable and financially secure family.  What is most remarkable about the Huang family home are its dissimilarities to our own homes.  It has doors and rooms and roofs and windows and stairways, but that’s about where the similarities end.  This is like no place I have ever been.  It is a literal and metaphoric door into another world.  I could not have dreamed it up.  I am not interested in spoiling it for you.  Go.  See it.  Take your time.  I’m going back.

We were only there for 26 hours, but somewhere in that timeline we drove to Winter Island, a small harbor island connected by a bridge on a very short manmade neck.  In addition to a handful of homes, the island sports a roomy Victorian mansion home for wayward boys (I wonder what the recidivism rate is) and an oddly named Wakiki beach.

Next land mass over, at the Salem Willows the remnant of an old style amusement park seems to be growing a little wilder, a little less interesting for its honky-tonk entertainment value and more interesting for its truer recreational potential, which I think is as a seaside pedestrian park. When we were there, all the shops were shuttered for the winter. The park was snow covered, even the trees looked cold so we decided to stay in the car, but then I spotted a fox.  After it went down the boat ramp to the beach, I followed it on foot from a considerable distance.   Fortunately I had my camera with me.  What’s cool is how easy it is to keep an eye on a fox on a beach where there are only rocks to hide behind.  And if I stood still when he looked toward me, he couldn’t see me.  Back home in Hyde Park, a coyote (we have a surprisingly large population) will slip out of view in seconds, if he feels like it. The fox had a mangy looking tail, which is a bit of a disappointment considering how luxurious a good fox tail can be, but just the idea that I was sharing the beach with a fox made me feel good, not so inescapably trapped in the urban. Looks like another place I’ll be seeing again.

Finally, and fittingly we stumbled on one of those incredible restaurants that plug away day after day serving a hundred or two people with very little fanfare but with a tremendous amount of grace and true class.  It was an accident.  One of us said she was hungry.  We turned to read the menu on the storefront wall and the man walking in front of us stopped, held the door and practically ushered us in.  His manner implied that there was no place else we could possibly be going.  He was right.  Red’s Sandwich Shop is just about the best restaurant I have ever found by accident.  I never saw an ad, never read a word, never heard a review, a comment, a whisper or a clue.  No sir.  This was pure luck. It just so happens, I love sea bass, my wife does too.  Seared sea bass, 6oz at least, cold beet and fennel salad on a bed of raddichio, a cup of unseasoned, perfectly cooked brown rice...$6.95  We’ll take two.  No joke, Feb 18, 2010.  $6.95  I wanted to order four and take two to go, but I decided not to indulge my greed.  Even more amazing was that there were about eight other specials on a par with that one.

Their menu says that they won an award for the best breakfast in Salem for 23 consecutive years running and in fact there was a fellow diagonally across the aisle, an obvious regular, who ordered bacon and waffles, but I didn’t even care...the lunch could have been half as good for $6.95 and I’d go back.

Then we went home. Less than an hour away by car, around a gallon of gas, about 20 miles.  I can do it on my bike in less than 90 minutes.  Goodbye Salem.  Hello Salem, now I know you’re there.

One more thing Salem, for ignoring you for all these years, I want to say I’m sorry and thank you for taking me back, no questions asked. Would you mind ditching that Halloween costume?

Love Spell

This is Salem...and magick is practiced all around.  Here is a spell that I cast in my youth, about 20 years ago, when I lived in California, with VERY surprising results:  two people I worked with, one a straight man, and one a lesbian woman, and best friends with each other, fell in love with me (I know this because they professed it over and over)--needless to say, my true love du jour was in Scotland 4,000 miles away.  Soap operatic at best, painful at worst.  So, my lesson about spells, whether or not you believe they work or not...be careful what you wish for.


Love spells are a type of caging spell and not really ethical, but here is one that is a Tarot spell and rather easy.

A GENERAL SPELL TO ATTRACT LOVE

 

The cards are laid out in a stairstep going down.

Perform this spell if you are yearning for a great love to enter your life. This spell calls upon arcane forces to bring the ideal man or woman to you.
The first card in the layout is THE STAR, showing powerful, unseen, and fateful forces opening channels to bring your ideal lover to you. The KNIGHT OF CUPS represents a person who brings love into your life, who involves you in an affair - the proverbial "knight in shining armor". According to some Tarot experts, the knight can represent either a male or a female. However, if you're calling for an ideal woman and are uncomfortable with the KNIGHT, then substitute THE HIGH PRIESTESS, THE EMPRESS, or one of the QUEENS. In fact, if you have a very idea of what you want your ideal man or woman to be, put any card you feel best represents your ideal mate in this position. THE LOVERS here uses it's literal meaning (the third card).

As accessories for this spell, obtain thirteen red candles (do not light these candles until instructed to, later in the spell). If you wish to use other accessories, include additional candles, flowers, crystals and gemstones, and cloth to lay the cards upon, in shades of red, the color of human love, or white, representing pure psychic energy.

Perform the spell at night before going to bed.  Also try to perform this spell during a new moon, or when the moon is waxing. 

Do the following :

When ready, lay out the cards. First set THE STAR in place. After you have done so, spread out your arms and say:

I call upon all good spirits!
I call upon all karmic forces!
I call upon the wide-ruling powers!
Make smooth the way, that my love may be brought to me!

Think about your desire to enlist forces in helping you to find a true love, a soul mate.
Next, set down THE KNIGHT OF CUPS. Think about what you want in the ideal man or woman.
Finally, set THE LOVERS in place. Spend some time daydreaming about the sort of romantic adventures you would like to have.
When your visualizations are complete, take the thirteen red candles and use them to make a circle around your card layout. Light each candle, and then, with as much feeling as you can, recite the following affirmation.

I call for love, and love comes to me guided by the light of my flames.
Whether it be from near or from far,
My love is drawn to me.
I give love, I receive love.
Our love is passionate, our love is intense as flame.
Our love is long and lasting.
As I desire, so I have love, and so shall it be!

You may close the spell at this point by putting out the candles and putting away the cards or as desired.

Crafty...But Not Witchcrafty.

There is a street right in downtown Salem that is known not for the witchcraft that abounds all around.  I might describe it with just the word craft, but that doesn't quite do justice to this special little street.  Front Street, off Washington Street, has four beautiful shops that cater to creators of decorative and wearable art nestled in charming brick-and-granite buildings.

 SEED STITCH FINE YARN

21 Front Street Salem, MA 01970 | 978.744.5557

STORE HOURS:
Tues-Sat: 10 AM-5:30PM Thursday: 10 AM-8PM
Sunday: 12.00 PM-5:00 PM
Closed Monday 

Our first stop, on the right, is Seed Stitch Fine Yarn at 21 Front Street.  Owned by Courtney Heath, a Salem resident, Seed Stitch carries high-quality, hard-to-find yarn.  Alpaca, cashmere, silk.  It's hard to keep your hands off.  But you don't have to, because everything you need to begin a project can be found here.  Gorgeous samples, knitting and crocheting notions, patterns, and hands-on help.  I have gone to Seed Stitch when I've been entangled in a knotty problem, and the employees have been glad to help.  There are scheduled knitting groups, and people who just hang out playing with and telling yarns, so if you want to meet some new friends, you're always welcome.   Coming up is a yarn crawl, a self-guided tour of the finest yarn shops on the North Shore. Seed Stitch Yarn also offers classes--check their website for class offerings and times.

Knitters gather for a knitting with lace workshop at Seed Stitch

BEADWORKS

10 Front Street Salem, MA 01970 | 978.741.2323
 

STORE HOURS:
Tues-Sat: 10 AM-5:00PM

Wed., Thurs., & Fri.: 11AM-6PM

Closed Sunday 

More eye candy!  Shelves of it!  Boxes of it! My daughter and I hadn't intended to, but we left with 20 or so beautiful sparkly beads to decorate her newly-made-(by me)-from-recycled-sweaters slippers.  Beadworks, 10 Front Street, features rows and rows of sumptuous beads in all colors and materials,  from all over the world, ranging from about  $.30 to $5.00.  

Beadworks offers girls' night out and birthday parties, or if you're visiting in town and are feeling creative, stop by and make yourself at home and make yourself some jewelry!  There is a comfy workspace where you can "make the jewelry you want to wear",  Beadworks' motto, right there in the store. A great rainy-day activity.

Jewelry created at Beadworks

Beadworks' work area

B.F. GOODSTITCH

18 Front Street Salem, MA 01970 | 978.740.8986
 Call for hours and class information

 
B.F. Goodstitch is a charming needlepoint store with an equally charming proprietor, Englishwoman Fidelis Fenno.  A benchmark shop on Front Street, Goodstitch has been here for 11 years.  It sells fine embroidery and needlepoint supplies, including yarns and threads of silk, wool, and metallics.  B.F. Goodstitch specializes in hand-painted canvases for needlpoint as well as some cross-stitch canvases.  Often these are one-of-a-kind and can't be found elsewhere.  

Again, as in the other shops on this social street, classes and stitching groups can be had.   Embroidery, needlepoint, and  tassel-making are offered, and Fidelis can teach you how to make one beautiful tassel. Call for details.

An embroidery piece incorporating common motifs found in Salem, the willow and urn carved on early tombstones 

Wall of embroidery thread

MARKETPLACE QUILTS

6 Front Street Salem, MA 01970 | 978.740.3890

STORE HOURS:

Tuesday - Friday, 11:00 am - 5:30 pm
Sat 10:00 am - 5:30 pm

  A quaint display of all things quilty

Owned by Salem resident Maureen Clark, Marketplace Quilts has been on Front Street for 7 years, in Salem for 10.  It boasts fine-quality, 100% cotton quilting fabric in adorable designs that can't be found in the big box craft stores.  Quilting books and patterns for beginners to experts, and classes! You can book stitching time when you need access to an industrial machine and the occasional helping hand. And for locals, you can be spared a trip out to the malls when you need simple sewing notions such as needles and thread.  (This was a happy discovery for me--ANYTHING to stay away from a mall!)   There are also quilting circles (call for details).

Civil War Tribute Quilt

A Jazzy New Salem Inn Package

I am very excited to present a new, one-weekend only Salem Inn package.  It features a very special event, the Salem Jazz and Soul Festival's 4th Annual Spring Gala, All Keyed Up.  This affair is an evening concert at the Peabody Essex Museum (it's always fun to be there after hours, in a special enclave with elegantly dressed folk while all the other poor people who have no tickets can only gaze in wistfully- very different than during daylight hours when the whole museum is open.)

The concert will feature the area's leading pianists and organ players, including Grammy Award-winner David Maxwell, Marty Rowen and Ken Clark of Fats Hammond, Jen Kearney and Benjamin Zecker. All proceeds will benefit the Salem Jazz and Soul Festival's mission to put on free concerts and support music education on the North Shore of Massachusetts.  Please have a listen to a sample above!

8 PM April 17 at the Atrium of the Peabody Essex Museum

Our Fabulous Salem Inn Package includes two nights at the Salem Inn, Friday April 16th and Saturday April 17th, two tickets to All Keyed Up, http://www.salemjazzsoul.org/ and a $50.00 gift certificate to Rockafella's Restaurant http://www.rockafellasofsalem.com/ , a swingin' place right downtown.

We only have a limited amount of tickets that are discounted for the Salem Inn so book soon!

$429.00 plus the fine print.

Salem Inn/Salem Theatre Company Package

We are pleased to announce a new package featuring The Salem Theatre Company.  The Company has just opened a new professional space at 90 Lafayette Street, within walking distance of the Salem Inn.  Book a night or two at the Salem Inn.  Attend any of Salem Theatre Company's Opening Celebration events (music, theatre, and comedy over the next 2 weekends) and bring your ticket back to the Inn and we will refund the cost of your ticket.  PLEASE book your theatre tickets soon as it is an intimate space and shows are selling out!

http://www.salemtheatre.com/on_stage.htm

Playgrounds and Outdoor Fun in Salem

If you're traveling with kids, you may wish you knew where to find the best outdoor playspots. Usually, you won't find these in a travel guide, so I'm going to give you the inside scoop. My children are 5 and 7 and we have visited them all.

Our Favorites.


View of Salem Sound from Fort Pickering, Winter Island

Winter Island. Winter Island is a park that has everything you could wish for. Located on a peninsula that juts out into Salem Harbor, it is home to Fort Pickering, built in 1643 and utilized through the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American and Civil Wars. The Pickering Lighthouse is now restored and flashes every 4 seconds- powered by solar panel. Waikiki Beach is a lovely sandy swimming beach that has some great climbing rocks and can be reached by a path from the parking lot or through the "secret passage" (our name for the wooded trail that runs around the island). There is an outdoor shower, bathrooms, indoor showers, campsites, and picnicking areas. There are grassy meadows, and gentle hills- one known as Executioner's Hill after the hanging there of Brian Sheehan in 1772. This hill overlooks a top-rate play structure. Oh, and it also has an old Coast Guard airplane hangar (where I used to skateboard as a kid; now it is boarded up for safety measures), a boat launch, Harbormaster's Station, and a beautiful burnt-out brick structure that was a Coast Guard Administration Building. It was used as a practicing ground for fire-fighters. It now serves as a terrific setting for camp ghost stories. Directions and maps can be found at:
http://www.salemweb.com/winterisland/






Winter Island from the air



Forest River Park. This, too, is a waterfront park, but it is set deep in the harbor. It has two beaches that aren't ideal for swimming but are great for kids to wade in and look for hermit crabs and for building sand castles. The play structure here is brand-new and there are scores of huge old trees, which makes it a beautiful place to walk or jog in the fall. Forest River is home to Salem's city pool, and visitors can obtain a pass for $5.00 which is good for the whole season but worth it even for an afternoon.
http://www.salem.com/Pages/SalemMA_Recreation/forestriverpool


The newly re-opened Pioneer Village, operated by the theater department of Gordon College, is tucked away in Forest River Park. Built in 1930 to mark the tercentennial of Massachusetts, Pioneer Village is America's first living history museum. The village sits on three acres of land and contains various examples of colonial architecture: dugouts, wigwams, thatched roof cottages, and the Governor's Faire House. Culinary and medicinal gardens and a blacksmith shop further interpret early 17th-century colonial life.



Early American life re-enacted at Pioneer Village

http://www.salemweb.com/tales/pioneervillage.shtml

From downtown Salem, follow Route 1A/114/Lafayette Street toward Marblehead. Take a left onto West Avenue (you will see the first orange brick building of Salem State College at the fork in the middle of the road) and follow the road straight into Forest River Park. Pioneer Village is on the left-hand side as you are facing the ocean. Less than 10 minutes from downtown Salem.


The Essex Street Walking Mall and Behind the Phillips Library. This was a great favorite with my kids when they were really young and play structures were too big and the Salem attractions too scary. The Essex Street walking mall is (nearly) car-free, and there are alley-ways here and there and several fountains that make it a fun place to bring toddlers. We used to walk the low walls around the planters and hop across the fountains, play hide and seek in between the arches of the buildings lining the mall, and follow the pathways of different color bricks laid along the walkway. To the right of the Visitors' Center located in the old Salem Armory is a passageway into the back garden of the Phillips Library (part of the Peabody Essex Museum). There is a very large handicap ramp behind the library where my kids loved to run up and down, and the setting is quite lovely with grass, trees, and an antique garden house that has a circular walkway which makes a great racetrack.

There are other great spots in Salem, including an alpaca farm. We are going to revisit this as it's been several years since we've been there- we'll let you know what we find.

Coming up...Is the Salem Inn Haunted?....Spa packages...Alpaca farms....

Salem Theatre Company New Space is Opening!

I have been to a number of the Salem Theatre Company's productions and I am so excited that they are going to have a new, permanent theatre space right downtown. (Next to Strega restaurant- home of the North Shore's Best Martini Bar). STC's productions are always impressively professional and now they will have a space to match the quality of their work.

To celebrate the opening of their new theatre, they are coming in with a blast of performances, some of which will bookend February vacation!

For more information, visit their website at http://www.salemtheatre.com/on_stage.htm

Best of luck to them in their new venture!

SALEM THEATRE COMPANY - 90 LAFAYETTE STREET - SALEM, MA

Great Service Deserves a Posting

As an artist who paints large-scale (walls) I have had back problems as long as I can remember (about as long as I've been painting). Since last summer I have been getting massages at LivingWell, which is conveniently located in the heart of Salem (and, I might add, right next to the Starbucks. It was this proximity that first prompted me to go in).


"No, I can't turn my head back just now."

I have tried Rolfing, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, and Just About Everything Else.

The first person to ever give me real relief from my at-times debilitating pain was Frank Corcoran, the owner of LivingWell. And shhh- he's known locally as The Body Whisperer. Since then I've been back for regular tune-ups, facials, pilates lessons, and bodywork with the other therapists. Karen did a great job this morning.

The atmosphere is soothing...the offerings include everything from serious bodywork to a serious Brazilian wax. The receptionists are professional and always friendly, and Frank Corcoran is also extremely funny. If you can stop laughing long enough, he'll also educate you on how to help yourself.

Frank Corcoran, Owner and LMT, LivingWell

www.livingwellsalem.com

The Salem Inn will be putting together a package of the best LivingWell has to offer as well as lodging at the lovely and relaxing Inn. Stay tuned for that, but in the meanwhile LivingWell has Daily Discounts that are good for the day they are posted. The savings are significant and they vary from day to day. You can find these on their Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/LivingWell/195851229589?ref=ts

Recent Photography in Salem

I went to the funky coffee house, Front Street Coffee shop this morning and had a cup of tea while checking out the new exhibit of twenty photos by Brent Clarke, a photojournalist who lives and works in Boston. Some of the black and white images depict startling moments of intimacy during political protests and rallies, where it is hard to tell which side people are on (pro-choice or antiabortion, in favor of gay marriage or not) because the most striking aspect about them is that they're all human. One of the most beautiful photograph is that of a torn United States flag flying against an ominous stormy sky. Why is the flag torn? Where is it flying? Why would a torn flag be left to fly?

His photos are at Salem’s Front Street Coffee throughout the month of February.

~~~

Beauty is Balm to the Soul, Elias Andrinopoulos' photos of Greece, is opening on Friday February 12 at 5:00, Starbucks, 211 Washington Street, Salem.