My friend Joe Levin has died

For many years, Jeanne Levin was the tour and volunteer coordinator of the Museum, shepherding various groups around for various reasons. I met Jeanne when I was a callow student intern, long before I became the wizened archivist. I used to see her husband Joe at events and functions, and eventually became friends with him despite our age difference. We'd meet for lunch once in a while and I did an oral history with him in late 2005 about his World War II service. After earning a law degree and being drafted, Joe was with the 17th Bomber Group in North Africa, Italy and France. He was the adjutant of the 34th Bomb Squadron of that Group and ran the Group's newspaper. Here's a couple of photographs from him, one of him at the beginning of the war and one he took at the end as France is being liberated. Joe and I kept planning on getting the oral history down to the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project, but never got around to it. I'll make sure that the recording and copies of his photographs do get down there though. The family's death notice from the Post follows. Requiescat in pace, Joe, January 24, 1919-March 9, 2009.




On Monday, March 9, 2009, JOSEPH LEVIN of Bethesda, MD. Beloved husband of Jeanne Levin; devoted father of Michael (Christine Ims) Levin and Cynthia Levin; dear brother of Samuel Levin and the late Sara Zash. Also survived by many loving nieces, nephews and friends. Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 10:30 a.m. at Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, 8215 Old Georgetown Rd., Bethesda, MD. Interment following at King David Memorial Garden, Falls Church, VA. Shiva will be observed at the late residence on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Memorial contributions may be made to Hadassah, 1220 East-West Highway, Suite 120, Silver Spring, MD 20910 or to the Jewish Social Service Agency Hospice, 6123 Montrose Rd., Rockville, MD 20852. Arrangements entrusted to TORCHINSKY HEBREW FUNERAL HOME, 202-541-1001 (endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of Washington).

Published in The Washington Post on 3/11/2009

City of Las Cruces City Museums annual report.

City of Las Cruces City Museums annual report? Why you ask? Museum exhibit dept. alum Carey Crane's heading a department out there now.

Museum alum begins blogging

Jenn Heilman, formerly of our Public Affairs staff, was selected for an article on "DC's singles in Washingtonian magazine. The article will not run until August 2009, but until then, they will be chronicling my dating life in an online blog with 6 other DC daters called Dating Diaries. My "profile" went public today. Check back every week -- you'll start seeing details on my dating life next week, but remember, it's on a delay for privacy so what you read about next week actually happened a month ago! I'll also be writing some of the entries myself during "roundtables" where I weigh in with dating advice or thoughts."

Good luck, Jenn!

Former museum staffer now shepherds hurricane's PR

Our former public affairs officer Stephen Solomon sent in an article too.

From body parts to Rodin sculpture

Here's an article that features our former exhibits guy, J. Carey Crane, and shows him getting to move a Rodin sculpture.

Former museum staffer on weight vs height vs driver's license

Anthropologist Tony Falsetti was on the Museum's staff a decade or so ago. He popped up in the news recently - once for a project to match people's self-images with their body reality - "License, Registration And Weight, Please: For Many Drivers, Telling the Whole Truth Is Too Heavy a Burden," By Brigid Schulte, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, July 21, 2008; C01.

He also was wandering around Russia looking into the Czar's assassination.

Museum mentioned on History News Network

See "Memorial Day, the Great War, and America’s Last Surviving World War I Veteran,"
By Jeffrey S. Reznick, a former curator at the museum. Jeff used a couple of photos from the archives, as you can too if you click on our Flickr links to the right.

Former Curator Jeff Reznick at Book Festival

Jeff Reznick writes in to tell us about an opportunity talk to him and buy his World War I medical history books (which you can learn more about by clicking on the two pictures):

"This Sunday, April 27, the town of Kensington, Maryland will celebrate The International Day of the Book with a street festival on Howard Avenue in Old Town Kensington. I am excited to be one of nearly five-dozen local authors participating in the event.

Copies of my first book will be on display alongside flyers promoting my new book, which is due out early next year from Manchester University Press/ Palgrave Macmillan.

You can learn more about Kensington's Day of the Book Festival here
http://www.dayofthebook.com/
.

Brain Awareness Week mascot; OR, you can go home again if you squint

Former museum graphics guy Bill Discher wrote in to point out that the Brain Awareness Week mascot, seen here...


didn't quite look the way Bill remembered leaving him when he moved on last fall...



...so Bill reworked him again for this look...



..and since he cared enough to do this and write in, you can all see that Museums design by committee at times.

Dillinger - the FAQ

Our former PR man Steven Solomon sent me a note this morning with a link to this story - Dillinger: The man, the myths. Steven spent a lot of time on creating little pages in a FAQ to explain parts of the museum including No. 43 - Do you have 20th-century gangster John Dillinger's penis in the collection?

Whatever happened to... J. Carey Crane?

Another alum report - Carey was our exhibits head, but left us to go west. Carey had been the Curator of Exhibits at the Alamagordo Space Museum, but reports the "Latest twist in my checkered career: Senior Exhibits Curator for the City of Las Cruces' Museum system. Las Cruces is creating a complex including art, history, natural history museums. Several historic buildings including a railroad depot are close by."

Another alumnus story

Does my heart proud... Scott was an assistant archivist who was one of our more... agressive... flickr posters. And now he'd putting up favorite pictures at his new job.

The Emilio Segrè Visual Archives has put up an online gallery of some of our favorite images from the collection and we invite everyone to take a look (more info below).

Thanks,
Scott Prouty
photos@aip.org

****
Every picture tells a story. We've picked 63 of our favorites.

Visit our new Favorite Photos gallery featuring the most popular and striking selections from our collection of more than 30,000 images of physicists and astronomers.

The Emilio Segrè Visual Archives (http://photos.aip.org/?em=esva0308) site includes historical photographs, slides, lithographs, engravings, and other visual materials of many of the best known names in physics and astronomy, including Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe, along with other lesser known figures. All are available as digital downloads or high-quality print reproductions.

We hope that you'll browse through the site and enjoy the pictures.

About the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives (ESVA) The ESVA is a leading resource of digital and print images of scientists and their work. It is part of the Niels Bohr Library & Archives at the American Institute of Physics (http://www.aip.org/?em=esva0308) in College Park, Maryland.

For more information
Call us at (301) 209-3184 or visit online at http://photos.aip.org/?em=esva0308

Creativity, music and neurology article

Museum alum Jenn Heilman passed along this article as being appropriate as the Museum sponsors Brain Awareness Week - "Creativity Jazzes Your Brain," By LAURAN NEERGAARD
The Associated Press, Monday, March 10, 2008.

Jen's now Director of Communications for the non-profit group Prevention of Blindness Society of Metropolitan Washington.

Another museum alum sighting

Jeff Reznick has a book review of Meade and Serlin's edited volume Radical History Review 94: Disability and History in the new issue of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, v. 82.

Alumni Steven Solomon mentioned in paper

Our former public affairs officer is quoted here in Tampa Bay Online. One presumes he's tan, rested and ready, but there's no picture.