SHELLEY HAVEN: IN THE LANDSCAPE

Forty recent works by Shelley Haven '73 will be on view at the Tompkins Square Gallery, Oct. 5 through Oct. 26.

The exhibition features oil paintings, monoprints, etchings, pastels and watercolors completed during the past two years. "Subtle layering and manipulation of color and mark reveal the nuances of each place and reflect the artist's compulsion to immerse herself in the natural landscape," reads a press release about the exhibition. "Haven's work explores a fascination with the landscape as a transitory place where abstraction and figuration, object and space, the mundane and spiritual merge."

Haven's paintings are also on view through Oct. 14 at the Cooper Union Great Hall Gallery's Continuing Education Instructors Exhibition. Her prints will be included in exhibitions at St. John's University in Queens and in Kiev and Budapest later this year. Last year, Binghamton University and Pfizer, Inc. presented solo exhibitions of Haven's work. Haven's work has been included in recent group exhibitions in England, France, The Netherlands, Poland and Oregon. Her work is in public, corporate and private collections in the United States and abroad.

The Tompkins Square Gallery is located in the Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library, 331 East Tenth Street, New York, between Avenues A and B. Gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 1:30 to 4:40 pm, or by appointment. For more information, call 212-533-1383.

Yasmin L. Hurd '82, PhD, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, was featured in Black Enterprise magazine in a story about high-achieving women, "Top Guns," by Sonia Alleyne. Hurd is Karolinska's director of graduate studies in the department of clinical neuroscience, psychiatry section; drug addiction and psychiatric disorders are her areas of expertise. "I love the brain," she said in the article. "It's so complex and we understand so little about it." Hurd, who was raised in Jamaica, West Indies, and grew up in Brooklyn, double-majored in psychology and biochemistry at Binghamton.

Research regarding a potential detector of and antidote to anthrax conducted by Raymond Schuch '89, a post-doctoral researcher at Rockefeller University, and his fellow scientists, Daniel Nelson and Vincent A. Fischetti, received international attention after they published their study in Nature. Many publications, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and both AP and UPI wire services did stories about the scientists' findings. "A novel agent that could help detect an anthrax attack and serve as an antidote to the deadly disease has been developed by biologists at Rockefeller University," begins the New York Times story published Aug. 22, "Anthrax Study May Yield Test And a Remedy," by Nicholas Wade. "The agent was isolated from a virus that preys on the anthrax bacterium and replicates inside it. When the virus particles need to escape, they order the synthesis of a special enzyme called a lysin that chews through the bacterium's cell wall. Though designed to pierce the wall from the inside, the lysin enzyme can also crumble it from outside. Doses of lysin injected into mice infected with a close relative of anthrax saved most of the animals from a certain death, according to a report in today's issue of Nature by Dr. Raymond Schuch, Dr. Daniel Nelson and Dr. Vincent A. Fischetti." For more information, go to Rockefeller University's news release, "Natural-born killers enlisted to fight anthrax: Phage enzymes may offer powerful novel method to wipe out anthrax bacteria in seconds" at http://www.rockefeller.edu/pubinfo/082102.php.

Sasha Fassett '90 and Paul Manuszewski '93, MAT '97, who are building a straw-bale house in Kirkwood, were featured together with their children, Julian, 11, and Zoe, 7, in a story about their project in the Press & Sun-Bulletin. About 500 straw bales will provide high-density insulation for their 1,200-square-foot house, making it highly energy efficient. In the newspaper, Manuszewski was quoted as saying that the heating bills should be only about a third of what most people pay for a similarly sized house. The couple also plans to include south-facing solar panels on the house and hopes to sell stored energy to New York State Electric and Gas Corp. About 24 volunteers came to a workshop they held last summer and helped them to set the straw bales into the wood frame of the house. "It's a model in environmental efficiency," said Fassett. "I'm at a place in my life where I can live closer to my ideals," said Manuszewski.

Both say that the community has shown a great interest in alternative building. "If anyone is interested in learning more, they can come join our plaster parties." Email Fasset at sfassett@binghamton.edu to find out when the next "plaster party" is.

l to r: Candace and Laurence at the start of their journey, leaving Portland, Laurence resting at a stop overlooking Crystal Falls in Washington state, Candace on a climb from 3,700 feet to 4,500 feet in northeastern Washington state, "After pedaling 3,800 miles, New York is probably the most beautiful." -- Laurence

Laurence Schenk, MBA '98, MD, and his daughter, Candace, spent 10 weeks riding their bicycles across country, from Portland, Ore., to Binghamton, after her graduation from Reed College. Both were featured in a story about their trek in the Press & Sun-Bulletin. "When you roll into town on a bicycle, no one is threatened by you," said Schenk, who is an orthopedic surgeon. "So everyone's incredibly friendly. People were warm, friendly, curious -- that's the kind of experience we had." Would he do it again? "If I could find the right two or three people who could take two or three months off work, who were in good enough shape physically to do that trip and, more important, had the mental mindset and determination to do it Ð and, on top of that, who wanted to do it in the same style I wanted to do it -- then yes. I'd go in a heartbeat. But the chances of finding that combination are pretty unlikely." Traveling with his own daughter, Schenk said, was "absolutely fantastic. We decided at the outset to take it slow and enjoy it. We weren't concerned about how long it would take." Visit Schenk's website at http://www.longwhiteline.com/ for more photos and a day-by-day chronology of the trip, with photos to go with each day.

Alumni spiedie devotees stay loyal

Binghamton alumni can testify to that fact that there's nothing quite so scrumptious as a Binghamton spiedie -- and they did, in a July 24, 2002, Newsday story about spiedies by Ellen Ryan. Following are the Binghamton alumni who were quoted in the story and what they had to say about spiedies:

Lois Weinstein '65, a Bay Shore consultant: "Spiedies are the most fantastic junk food in the world."

Leonard Feld '72, a Jericho lawyer: "The savory bits are turned out onto absorbent, cotton-style white bread, containing no nutritive value of any kind. The hot sauce is taken into the bosom of the bread and joins the sizzling meat as it comes up to your mouth. It can be a special moment that you experience over and over again."

Gerry Mullany '84 of Brooklyn returns to Binghamton University once or twice a year -- and always stops at Sharkey's for a spiedie.

Brian Polhill '89 of Kew Gardens prefers to get his spiedies from Lupo's. "It's like seeing the Statue of Liberty when you visit New York: It must be part of the itinerary."

Ira Newman '91, MBA '92 of Melville: "My fraternity brothers and I used to do spiedies at least once a week."

Danielle Scarinci '96 of Franklin Square had this to say about spiedie sauce: "The essence goes through the meat. It penetrates the meat and makes it super-tender."