This week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden will have all the pomp and circumstance a pandemic will allow, but it’s also giving a UC Davis faculty member and his troupe of dancing mailboxes an excuse to celebrate democracy in several cities.
Wednesday — Inauguration Day, Jan. 20 — performers dressed as mailboxes will be dancing and singing, flash-mob style, in Berkeley; New York City; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Austin, Texas.
Delivering Democracy is a project of Larry Bogad, chair of the UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance, who had the idea during presidential election season when voting by mail became a subject of controversy.
“This was democracy in action. I thought, what if the mailboxes just started dancing — celebrating the hardworking civil servants of the post office … and really, just celebrating working people everywhere who make democracy possible,” Bogad said about his project, which is nonpartisan and advocates only voting and democracy, not one candidate over another. It was meant to be uplifting, but have a message, too, he said.
Read more in this UC Davis news release.
— Karen Nikos-Rose
Twitter: Vaccine production explained
Walter Leal: How do they make these #covidvaccines in "1 year"? Rachel Levan, a @ucdavis undergraduate student in my BIS102 class explains in a short video.
Like a sturgeon
Just how big can a white sturgeon get, and what are the little “whiskers” on the front of its face called? UC Davis Aquaculture Cooperative Extension takes to its new YouTube channel to answer basic questions about the fish, plus discuss the factors that threatened the species before UC Davis and others stepped in.
Instagram: Custom fire helmet shields
Fire Chief Nate Trauernicht: True pieces of artistry from Bob Stella (@helmetshields) — personally purchased, hand-painted, helmet shields for myself and my deputy chief. Perhaps the only thing more impressive than the helmet shields is the man behind them.
ICYMI: Stella is a self-taught painter who started painting helmet shields in 1988 in his home studio in Weymouth, Massachusetts, where he still paints today. After making more than 15,000 shields, he has become one of the most sought-after helmet-shield painters in the country. He is known for his 23-karat gold-leaf shields but also does silver-leaf and painted shields.
Today, he is the official painter of helmet shields for FDNY, the Boston Fire Department and other fire departments across the country.
This is what tradition looks like. Thanks, Bob!