MOUNT VERNON — Two California artists use short narratives, animation, video, audio and large-scale drawings to examine the history of corn in an exhibit opening Saturday, Jan. 8, at Cornell College with a reception for the artists from 2-4 p.m.

“FUTURE GEN” explores the human-plant interface – specifically related to corn – throughout history in a digital multimedia installation by Cornell alumna Kristine Diekman and Tony Allard. The exhibit runs through Feb. 13 in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. An artists’ talk is Thursday, Jan. 6, at 7 p.m. in Room 222 of McWethy Hall.

Diekman is a 1979 Cornell graduate and video artist who chairs the visual and performing arts department at California State University in San Marcos, where she is associate professor of video and new media. Allard teaches video art and related subjects at CSUSM and has led performance workshops across the country.

Collaboration and regional participation are crucial to their creative process. They tapped Cornell students to record their audio environments, and then mixed the recordings into a surround sound audio landscape for the exhibit. Mount Vernon farmers Laura Krouse, a biology lab instructor at Cornell, and David Hoke were interviewed about breeding, planting, harvesting and marketing local crops. Also interviewed was a corn breeder and former vice president at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Don Duvick of Johnston.

“The cultural, political and economic dominance of agriculture in Iowa has been a central part of our research into the effects of corporate farming, genetically engineered crops and seeds, the historical origins of corn and the myths that have developed around this seemingly ordinary yet highly evolved plant,” Diekman and Allard say. “ ‘FUTURE GEN’ is hybrid folklore, incorporating elements of poetic retrospection on the history of corn and artistic musings on its future.”

MOUNT VERNON — The Cornell College Chamber Singers and Concert Choir will perform a holiday concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, in King Chapel. Admission is free.

The Chamber Singers’ program includes Benjamin Britten’s “A Boy Was Born,” Bach’s “Crown Him King of Kings,” a choral fantasy on “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “Here’s a Pretty Little Baby,” featuring soloist Justin Gohdes, a junior from Lee’s Summit, Mo.

The Concert Choir’s program includes “Carol of the Bells,” selections from Mozart’s “Vesperae solennes de confessore,” K. 339, and “Mary Had a Baby,” arranged by former Cornell music professor Alf Houkom and featuring soloist Erin Prall, a junior from Eagan, Minn. The program will close with “Silent Night.”

The Chamber Singers are led by guest director Storm Ziegler, a 1994 Cornell graduate who is director of choral activities and chairman of the performing arts department at Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids. In 2003, Kennedy’s music department was named a Grammy Signature School for being one of the top 50 high school music programs in America.

The Concert Choir is led by guest director Anne Lyman, who is assistant conductor of the Kantorei at the University of Iowa, where she is pursuing a doctorate in choral conducting. She is also director of music at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City.

Accompanist is organist Lynda Hakken.

MOUNT VERNON — “Don Juan in Chicago,” a comedic mix of a little Faust, a little Seinfeld and even a bit of Mozart, opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3, at Cornell College in the Plumb-Fleming Studio Theatre of Armstrong Hall.

Performances continue Dec. 4, 9, 10, and 11 at 8 p.m., and Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for seniors, students and children. Reserve tickets through the Cornell box office at 895-4293.

Don Juan is a handsome, rich, sexually naive nobleman in 16th-century Spain. His servant, Leporello, urges him to find a girlfriend and lead a normal life, but the Don is more interested in finding the meaning of life through books and alchemy. Afraid that he’s running out of time, Don Juan cuts a deal with the devil that grants him and Leporello immortality as long as the virginal Don Juan beds a different woman every day. Unfortunately he falls in love with the first woman he seduces, Dona Elvira. Infuriated by the Don’s abandonment, Elvira cuts her own deal with the devil: she won’t die until she sleeps with Don Juan a second time.

Four hundred years later in Chicago, exhausted by endless sex and still pursued by Elvira, Don Juan grapples with the sexual mores of contemporary urban America.

Playwright David Ives has a “lively wit and original mind, and a neatly topsy-turvy way with life’s little realities. (‘Don Juan’) is a brashly funny way to spend a couple of hours,” writes a New York Post critic.

The Cornell production is directed by Jody Hovland, founder and co-artistic director of Riverside Theatre in Iowa City and artist-in-residence in theatre and communications studies.

“Don Juan in Chicago” contains adult language and situations and may not be suitable for younger patrons.

MOUNT VERNON — Peace activist and author Peggy Gish, who led peace missions to Iraq before, during and after the U.S. invasion, will speak at Cornell College on Monday, Nov. 29, at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.

Gish’s lecture, “ Iraq: A Journey of Hope and Peace,” is the title of her September 2004 book. She will read from her book at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.

Gish is a member of an intentional community, New Covenant Fellowship, in southern Ohio. She is co-director of the Appalachian Peace and Justice Network and has conducted sessions in conflict management. She has served as a social worker in rural Indiana and inner-city Chicago, and her international experience includes the West Bank and Africa in addition to Iraq. Last December she received the Yoko Tada Human Rights Award for her work in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT).

In October 2002, Gish led the first CPT group to Iraq to maintain a presence on behalf of civilians before, during and after the U.S. invasion. At various civilian-sensitive locations, she and her colleagues hung banners stating, “To Bomb This Site is a War Crime.” At the time of the bombing, she was staying at a Baghdad water treatment plant, near a hospital complex. She was deported, but later returned to Iraq under the U.S. occupation.

CPT representatives have lived among the Iraqi people, intervening and advocating for peaceful solutions while supporting local efforts to rebuild community and deal with problems the people face. CPT workers also talk with American soldiers about human rights issues.

From May to December 2003, CPT representatives interviewed Iraqi detainees and compiled a report that summarized findings in 72 cases, which was presented to members of the military and Congress.

MOUNT VERNON — The Moscow String Quartet, one of the first all-women ensembles to play on the international circuit, performs at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29, in King Chapel at Cornell College.

This is the second of four concerts in Cornell’s Music Mondays series. General admission is $8 at the door.

The quartet’s program for Cornell features Alexander Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 in D Major, Igor Stravinsky’s Three Pieces (1914) and Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major.

Russian composer Alfred Schnittke, considered the spiritual heir to Dmitri Shostakovich, described the Moscow String Quartet as “an extraordinary ensemble that distinguishes itself with refined musical style, an unusually beautiful sound and palette of colors, and a tremendous artistic temperament.”

All graduates of the Moscow Conservatory and Gnessin Musical Institute ( Moscow), the quartet formed almost 30 years ago and gained international acclaim after winning the 1978 Leo Weiner International Competition of String Quartets in Budapest, Hungary, and the 1979 International Competition of String Quartets in Evian, France. The quartet has performed in the major concert halls in Europe, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, as well as venues throughout North America. The quartet is based in Denver.

The remaining concerts in the Music Mondays series are the female vocal ensemble Tapestry on Feb. 21 and the saxophone group Prism Quartet on March 14.

MOUNT VERNON — In one of the e-mails Cornell College student Becky Kakac received from her soldier father in Afghanistan, he asked for more than 300 pairs of shoes.

Alan Kakac of Garrison was stationed with the Iowa Army National Guard near an orphanage overflowing with barefoot children whose parents had been killed by the Taliban. Another soldier wanted to find shoes for the children.

“My dad told him, ‘I have two very industrious daughters,’ ” recalls Becky, 20, a junior politics and economics and business major, and a 2002 graduate of Washington High School in Vinton.

Becky and her sister, Jenni Birker, 23, an insurance agent in Vinton, launched Shoes for Kids last summer. They put collection boxes in Vinton businesses, gathered shoes from church clothing drives and enlisted relatives and friends in Virginia, Kansas and Texas to do the same. In about four months they collected 1,200 pairs of shoes – including 700 in Vinton – and began shipping them to the soldiers in Afghanistan.

“It’s because of my dad’s plea for help. He doesn’t have a lot of time to send e-mails, and when he sends pictures of the children, you really can’t say no,” Becky says.

Collection boxes are available at several Mount Vernon locations Nov. 12 through Dec. 17: Cole Library on the Cornell campus, Hills Bank and Trust Company, Shepley Pharmacy, the United Methodist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Community Bible Church and Washington Elementary School. Donated shoes, either new or in good used condition, should fit boys and girls ages toddler to 15 years. If needed, the shoes will be cleaned and worn laces will be replaced, and then the pairs will be tied together before packing and mailing.

Shoes for Kids also accepts monetary donations to defray the cost of mailing shoes – around $25 per large package – to Afghanistan. Donations can be sent to the Shoes for Kids fund, Farmers Savings Bank and Trust, 401 B. Ave., Vinton, IA 52349.

Alan Kakac is due home in August, but his daughters would like the shoe drive to continue. The soldiers have been contacted by several orphanages and are working to establish long-term connections in Afghanistan that can continue to receive the shoes after troops leave.

MOUNT VERNON — Fall concerts at Cornell College will feature the Orchestra and Wind Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, in King Chapel, and two jazz groups at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14, in Ringer Recital Studio of Armstrong Hall. Admission is free to both.

The Orchestra’s selections include Alfred Reed’s “A Festival Prelude”; Aaron Copland’s “John Henry,” setting to music the legend of the strongman with a hammer and stake who challenged a steam drill to cut through a mountainside; and Ambroise Thomas’ operatic overture to “Raymond.”

The Wind Ensemble’s program includes Minnesota composer Arne Running’s “Chorale and Capriccio for Band,” plus two Percy Grainger folk songs. “Ye Banks and Braes 0’ Bonnie Doon” is a slow, sustained Scottish folk tune, while “Australian Up-Country Tune” attempts to capture Australian up-country feeling as Stephen Foster did with American countryside feelings in his songs.

The jazz concert’s big band pieces by the Jazz Ensemble will include Sammy Nestico arrangements of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A-Train,” plus a lively update on the Louis Armstrong tune “Struttin’ With Some Barbeque.”

The Jazz Combo will perform Sonny Rollins’ calypso-inspired “ St. Thomas,” Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” the Benny Golson standard of standards, “Killer Joe,” and the perennial bebop favorite by Dizzy Gillespie, “Good Bait.”

The Orchestra and Wind Ensemble are directed by Martin Hearne. The jazz ensembles are directed by Don Chamberlain.

MOUNT VERNON — To mark National Hunger, Health and Homelessness Week, Nov. 8-12, Cornell College will host panel discussions on homelessness and the impact of poverty on health care, stage a hunger banquet where participants receive food based on assigned social levels, and collect canned goods for a food pantry and money for a spring break service trip.

Here is the schedule of events:

Panel on homelessness: Monday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m., Orange Carpet, The Commons. Three members of Faces of Homelessness, a Washington, D.C., speakers bureau, will share their experiences.

George Siletti spent seven years in foster care and then much of the next 20 years on the streets, battling alcoholism; now he mentors people moving from institutions to independent lives. Joann Jackson became addicted to alcohol and drugs, left her job and lost her home, was beaten up, got raped at a homeless shelter and finally was sent to a mental institution; with help from a program called New Endeavors by Women, she has found a new home and is no longer addicted to drugs and alcohol. Moses Scott lived on the streets for 13 years; now in his 50s, he lives in a subsidized apartment and has been clean of alcohol and drugs for five years.

Panel on health care: Wednesday, Nov. 10, 6 p.m., Orange Carpet, The Commons. Representatives from the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City free clinics, Mercy Medical Center and His Hand Ministries Free Medical Clinic of Cedar Rapids and a Mount Vernon school nurse will discuss the primary health needs of the poor and the services provided locally.

Hunger Banquet: Thursday, Nov. 11, 5 p.m., Harlan Dining Room, The Commons. Cornell students, faculty and staff can register for this event. They are assigned a station in life – low, middle or upper class – and given a meal based on their social level. Discussion addresses facts about worldwide hunger.

Shack-a-Thon: Friday, Nov. 12, near Allee Chapel. Cornell students will live in cardboard boxes to raise awareness of homelessness and collect donations to finance the fourth annual spring break service trip, in March to Lexington, Va., to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.

A canned food drive runs Nov. 1-12 to benefit the food pantry at Southeast Linn Community Center in Lisbon. Non-perishable food items can be dropped off at Gary’s Foods, Mount Vernon Bank and Trust, Bridge Community Bank, Cole Library and several other campus locations in Mount Vernon; the Lisbon Library; and Hill’s Bank and Trust in Mount Vernon and Lisbon.

Also on Nov. 12, Cornell students can forgo their meals in the cafeteria, and then Sodexho Dining Services will spend that amount of money on food goods for the Cedar Rapids Salvation Army and the Olivet Mission.

All events are sponsored by Cornell’s Civic Engagement Office. For more information, call (319) 895-4003.

MOUNT VERNON — An expert in social psychology and cultural theory from European University in St. Petersburg will speak at Cornell College on Wednesday, Nov. 10, about Russia’s challenging transition from communism to democracy and its psychological implications.

Alexander Etkind, associate professor and dean in the department of political science and sociology, will lecture on “Civil Society in Contemporary Russia” at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.

Etkind’s scholarly interests include the sociology of religion, cultural studies, theory and history of literature and the history of psychoanalysis. His book “Eros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia” (1977) was the first comprehensive history of psychoanalysis as it was practiced in Russia between 1900 and 1930.

Etkind’s visit is sponsored by a grant from the Global Partners Project of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, a consortium that includes Cornell.

MOUNT VERNON — Author and activist Marge Piercy will read from her work and sign copies of her books at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, at Cornell College in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free. Read More…