Things to Do, Sept. 23-30, 2016

Folk duo

The Cornell Folk Song Society presents Cindy Kallet and Grey Larsen in concert, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. in Toad Hall at EcoVillage, 100 Rachel Carson Way, Ithaca.

Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door, $5 for Cornell students; children under age 12 admitted free. Advance tickets are available at Ithaca Guitar Works, Autumn Leaves, GreenStar Market and online. Visit cornellfolksong.org or call 607-351-1845.

Playing guitar, flute, tin whistle, fiddle, mountain dulcimer, melodeon and concertina, the duo’s repertoire spans Appalachian, contemporary folk, sea shanties, and traditional Irish, Scandinavian and Renaissance music. Larsen also revives the earlier, wilder Irish style of “crooked tunes” with extra beats.

Audience members are invited to bring instruments for a pre-concert jam at 7 p.m., and a dessert or snack to share. Carpooling is recommended; a free shuttle (14 seats) leaves from Baker Flag Pole on West Campus (7 p.m.) and Tompkins County Public Library (7:15 p.m.), call (315) 594-9601 to reserve a seat.

Judy’s Day

Visitors can enjoy hands-on activities, music, storytelling and food at Cornell Plantations’ annual Judy’s Day celebration, Sunday, Sept. 25, from 1 to 5 p.m. in F.R. Newman Arboretum.

The 2016 festival’s theme is “Food Plants of the Americas,” focusing on these plants’ unique relationships to their places of origin and how they have shaped the cultures, communities and industries of North, Central and South America.

Held in memory of Judy Abrams, an avid gardener and friend to Plantations who died in 1996, the annual program is a fun and educational festival for all ages.

Admission is free; suggested $5 or pay-what-you-can donations will keep programs like Judy’s Day accessible to the community. Free parking and shuttle service is available at Cornell’s B Lot, off Route 366 near the Vet School. For more information, call 607-255-2400.

Educate the Vote

Educate the Vote: Presidential Election 2016, Sept. 26 in Bailey Hall, will feature a panel discussion at 7:30 p.m. with an audience Q&A, before a viewing of the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at 9 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Admission is free. Tickets are required, and available from the Willard Straight Hall Resource Center ticket desk, Robert Purcell Community Center and the Ithaca Visitors Bureau.

The live panel debate on immigration and incarceration policy also will be livestreamed on CornellCast, and features prominent political scientists Marc A. Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; Karthick Ramakrishnan of the University of California, Riverside; National Review executive editor Reihan Salam; and Vesla Mae Weaver of Yale University. Gretchen Ritter ’83, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will moderate.

Reforming prison

Glenn E. Martin, a national leader in the criminal justice and prison system reform movement, delivers the Iscol Family Program for Leadership Development in Public Service Lecture, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. in G10 Biotech.

His talk, “Mass Incarceration: An Experience Shared by 65 Million Americans,” is free and open to the public.

He is founder and president of JustLeadershipUSA, an organization dedicated to cutting the U.S. inmate population in half by 2030. He is at the forefront of efforts to bring the voices of those directly affected by mass incarceration into the criminal justice reform conversation. The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research hosts the annual Iscol Lecture.

Restored classics

Cornell Cinema is showing new digital restorations of David Lynch’s 1986 noir thriller “Blue Velvet” and the animated science fiction tale “Fantastic Planet” this week in Willard Straight Theatre.

Fantastic Planet
Provided/Cornell Cinema
Cornell Cinema screens a digital restoration of the animated 1973 science fiction film 'Fantastic Planet' Sept. 28 and Oct. 1.

Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Hopper in his signature role as bad guy Frank Booth, “Blue Velvet” paved the way for Lynch to bring “Twin Peaks” (and MacLachlan) to television in 1990. It screens Sept. 29 at 9:45 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m.

Director René Laloux’s counterculture classic “Fantastic Planet,” screening Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 1 at 7:15 p.m., won the special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. A compelling statement against conformity and violence, the film is set on a distant planet where enslaved humans are the playthings of giant blue creatures. The French-Czechoslovakian production features eerie, coolly surreal cutout stop-motion animation and a brilliant psychedelic jazz score, and is presented as part of Cornell Cinema’s 60th Anniversary Celebration of Janus Films.

Natural planting

Author and planting designer Claudia West speaks in Cornell Plantations’ Fall Lecture Series, Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Alice Statler Auditorium. Based on West’s most recent book, “Planting in a Post-Wild World,” the lecture is free and open to the public.

With few wild places remaining in the world, planting design with natural principles can help bring wildness and ecological value back to the landscape. West has an extensive background in horticulture, ecology and environmental restoration, and will explore native plants’ role in future landscape planning and ideas and design strategies for aesthetically beautiful, ecologically adaptive, resilient and more self-sustaining gardens.

Plant art at BTI

The Cornell-affiliated Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), 533 Tower Road, is exhibiting “This Renaissance of Light” through December, with more than 40 works by three Ithaca artists.

The exhibit includes Susan C. Larkin’s dramatic black-and-white photos of desiccated parts of plants, “seeking the details people see every day but so often fail to notice,” with several images accompanied by Timothy Larkin’s poems. Christina Coleman’s sculptures feature plant remnants contained in tiny glass tubes and arranged on reclaimed barn wood.

The public is invited to a reception with artist talks and a tour, Thursday, Sept. 29, from 5 to 7 p.m. Parking is free behind the building after 5 p.m.

The artists will speak briefly about the works on display and their interest in plants, followed by “The Art of Scientific Imaging” and a tour of BTI’s Plant Cell Imaging Center with assistant professor of plant biology Adrienne Roeder.

‘Global Women’ exhibit

A student-organized exhibit on display through Sept. 30 in the Martha Van Rensselaer Gallery visualizes mastered and ongoing challenges of women across the globe.

“Global Women” depicts women in relation to economic, social, political, spatial and historical issues of concern, and encourages discussion of women’s advancement and empowerment.

The exhibit, organized by the graduate student organization Women in Public Policy, is sponsored by the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Women’s Resource Center.

Media Contact

Daryl Lovell