Fall 2021 Schedule   

Many people tend to listen to the music of their youth, but there’s plenty of fun and interesting current popular music. Using current and past hit songs as examples, we’ll hear how pop music has changed from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to the present day. Lyrical content, production techniques, and artist gender and diversity will be explored. If you like pop music, you’ll almost certainly find some new music to enjoy, and you may find yourself on your feet and dancing when you Zoom in on these presentations! 

The American Revolution has traditionally been presented as a straightforward struggle of good against evil, brave and honorable American patriots against British bullies and their German mercenaries. This is a central American myth. Behind that myth is a politically complex, morally uncertain, and shockingly violent story. The lectures will examine the political, economic, military, and cultural forces at work in the rise of “we the people” in the light of current scholarship as well as older sources. Clearly, the Revolution cannot be covered comprehensively in the time available to us. Our program’s goals are to help participants order key events, personalities and issues, integrating new information, and to suggest avenues for individual study.

The architectural legacy of the great rulers of Europe, fueled by trade and new-found sources of wealth, gave rise to sumptuous commissions to artists and architects, emphasizing the importance of patronage in the arts. Through lecture and slide illustration, we explore the splendid art, magnificent architecture, and luxurious decorative arts that graced the lives of the inhabitants of these eras. The lives of these wealthy patrons of the arts are discussed within the social and political surroundings of the period.

The global political and economic system has changed several times since the 19th century. Many things have gotten better, but major problems remain. Economists of different perspectives have made predictions and, in some cases, designed policies often with mixed results. Political leaders have modified those policies to favor one group or another, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not. This class will explore the history of the international political economy and look at its implications for the future. 

It’s used every day to promote products and services…and to con you into sharing your personal identity, cash, and control of your computer. Known as Social Engineering, the goal is to influence you to do something you would not sensibly do. Scammers use SE to play on your expectations, emotions, and good nature to give up information, cash, or vulnerable contacts. Join us to understand the basis of SE, and forms it takes to increase your awareness and reduce your vulnerability.

The Covid 19 pandemic brought drug, diagnostics, and vaccine development to the attention of the public, but the path of development was not always clear.  What is the normal process of development for diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines and how did the pandemic and new technologies change the process?  Join me for a review of the science, regulations, and business decisions that enabled short development times and multiple products for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of Covid-19. Get a better understanding of FDA’s regulatory role and the preparations to prevent future pandemics.

The American Dream is becoming just that, a dream. Young people today are far less likely to do better financially than their parents. Economic upward mobility is difficult to attain and, as data shows, does not materialize for most Americans. But is this a result of their unwillingness to work hard or our poor education system or is there something else at play? Modern banking and finance has been designed by the have’s and is structured to keep them that way. The standard reasons given for economic inequality in the neoliberal model of modern capitalism has created a system that is increasingly difficult to navigate without access from the inside. The 1% (most wealthy in America) have contained knowledge of and access to the financial systems that benefits them and perpetuates the boundaries that they themselves are setting. If every day Americans do not recognize the increasing unlikelihood of their own success, they will continue to be pawns in someone else’s path to wealth. 

This swift survey course will examine the changes in the Western World from the fall of Rome through the constriction of the Dark Ages to the beginnings of the Medieval era proper. During these 500 years we will see the resurrection of culture and the reestablishment of thinking, all based on faith. Interwoven with the reawakening of Europe we will explore the beginnings and flowering of Islam in the Middle East and the rich intermingling of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures in medieval Spain. We will also delve into the regional stories of the Middle Ages including “The Song of Roland”, “Beowulf” and others.

Released six years ago, the Windows 10 operating system has been through at least eleven “feature updates” in addition to monthly “cumulative updates.” Likewise, this popular course continues to update and focus on what is useful to you, especially considering the expected release of Windows 11. Fortunately, Microsoft’s newest OS is built on Windows 10, allowing us to continue our exploration through comparisons of these two versions.  Use your Windows 10 laptop, tablet, or 2-in-1 computer as part of class and explore useful ways through touch, keyboard, mouse, or voice to improve your computing experience.

We are not your average book discussion group! Participants make their own reading choices and come prepared to present brief reviews and share their appraisals. You may select a past or current author in any genre. Learn from each other through informal discussion. This is a low fee class, but requires registration.

It’s fall, and while the heady days of summer may be over, it’s not time to ignore your garden. Fall is a great time to help your garden get ready to rest and also get ready for the next growing season. We’ll discuss how to “put your garden to bed” and how to help protect it from pests that would love to nestle in and stay for the winter. We’ll explore ways to promote the health of overwintering perennials and shrubs and discuss which kinds of plants are best planted in the fall. The cool season of fall is also a great time to review what grew well and what didn’t. Do you have the amount of sun and shade your plants need? Is it time to try other plants? Now is a great time to order seed and bulb catalogs that will entice you with their bright pictures and helpful descriptions. What will you choose to grow next year? How about some plants that are native to our area and that can thrive better than plants imported from other parts of the country? NW natives love our climate. 

In this introductory class, we’ll get you started with 4 timesaving Google Apps that will simplify your life and make you more productive: Google Drive and Docs: A very brief overview of document creation and sharing “in the cloud” to familiarize you with how cloud-based apps work. Google Calendar: Introduce the basics of using Google Calendar to organize your events and reminders. Google Keep: Capture and organize what’s important and get more done with online notes you create and share. Google Photos: How Google fits in your digital photos organization plan. This online class will use recorded and live demonstration as well as written material.

Since the days of the Russian tsars and Ottoman sultans, Russia and Turkey have ebbed and flowed into each other’s territory, consciousness, and policy decisions. We will start in the waning days of each empire and trace their mutual histories from the beginning of the 20th Century. We will continue right up to today’s headlines and strive to improve our understanding of these two major and unique players on the world stage.

In this course we will travel to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam, city of canals and bicycles. First we head to the Rijksmuseum, the world's greatest repository of Dutch Golden Age art. The 17th-century Dutch Republic produced Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer, and the Rijksmuseum's Gallery of Honor showcases The Milkmaid, The Merry Toper, and The Night Watch, along with works by their less famous but highly worthy contemporaries. An easy stroll from there brings us to the Van Gogh Museum, where we will encounter the world's largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh. Most were originally owned by his brother Theo, and they include masterpieces from every stage of van Gogh's brief but prolific career, from The Potato Eaters to The Wheatfield with Crows. 2 sessions.

Science: a branch of knowledge dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged to show the operation of general laws. The story of man’s attempt to understand his Earth is a fascinating journey. We shall explore this story and how the real truths about the Earth slowly emerged to become the science of Geology of today.

This will be the first of two courses in which we will undertake a reading of the ancient Greek epic of the Trojan War. In addition to appreciating the poem on its artistic merits, we will also consider what it tells us of an ancient culture so deeply influential on our own, in concepts of heroism, patriarchy, and what may be termed “shame culture.” Our reading text will be the instructor’s own translation, which will be made available to students in pdf format, well in advance. Students are asked to read through Book Four for the first meeting (and those who wish to skip the notorious Catalogue of the Ships, Book 2, lines 494–759, are welcome to do so).

We will learn about the contributing social, political, and artistic phenomena as well as the influential choreographers surrounding the birth of Modern Dance in Europe and America. This course will include reading text, viewing videos of choreography and documentary footage, as well as analyzing and discussing this exciting and rich dance form.

Surrounded by ocean on three sides and transected by a vast network of rivers, the Olympic Peninsula’s landscape is characterized by isolation and dynamic ecosystems. We will explore the complex geologic forces that formed some of the youngest mountains on Earth, survey the natural history that continues to shape the landscape, and discover the intricate ecological connections among its unique temperate rainforest and underwater communities.

Our guide will be William Faulkner who will lead us through his Mississippi county and introduce us to a wide cast of characters including a prim spinster with a big secret. We will get to know the Snopes family of ambitious, ruthless, deceitful, and hilarious people as we are immersed in the Southern Gothic Literary Tradition. We will read and discuss two of Faulkner’s short stories:  A Rose For Emily and Barn Burning. Please read these prior to the first class session. The following 3 sessions will look at the Snopes Trilogy:  The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. If you haven’t read Faulkner for a while, here’s your chance to get reacquainted. If Faulkner is new to you, you’re in for a treat. 

In this course we will undertake a reading of the culminating play of Shakespeare’s second tetrology of history plays, written to establish Henry V as a national hero. Attention will be paid to the uses of the play in support of the British imperial project, from Elizabeth’s time to our own. Students are asked to read through Act 2 for the first class meeting. Any edition of the play will do, though it is recommended to find one with annotations, and with line numbers (the instructor prefers Signet Classic paperbacks, widely available).

The QUEST is a major motif in films – epic films whose heroes fill the big screen. Their names - Ulysses, Arthur and Galahad, even Quixote – fire our imaginations: they risk all to seek and find something of great value, and are transformed in the process. In this lecture/discussion course we will examine the phenomenon of questing: imagining, desiring, seeking, fixating on, striving for. Our focus will not be on the epic quests of heroes, but on the quests of ordinary people in their ordinary lives. Quests for authenticity, direction, safety, a voice in matters, a prize in competition…all that and more. Each week we will stream a film at home, then in class we will discuss what it does to enlarge our understanding of questing. The array of films will include shorts, documentaries, and dramas, all of which are available on Amazon or Kanopy (a library based service).

This poetry course will focus on and emphasize the role of the ‘divine’ in poems from around the world. We’ll examine how poetry is ideally suited for expressing ‘spiritual’ concerns. And in so doing, reveal the ‘beauty’ of a life dedicated to ‘burnishing’ the soul.  Some of the poets to be considered are:  Emily Dickinson, Rumi, Rilke, Wm Blake, Goethe, Hafez, Kabir, Li Po, Mary Oliver, Wm Stafford, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. Textbook is The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures edited by Robert Bly. Instructor Robert Stahl has taught previous CRI poetry classes on Rumi, Emily Dickinson, Rilke, Mary Oliver, and Haiku.

When the weather is good, the waters of Puget Sound sparkle in the sunshine and look clean, almost pristine. However, beneath the surface, the water and sediments are polluted with contaminants from stormwater, agricultural runoff, and industrial discharges as well as toxic chemicals not removed from treated sewage. Climate change in our region also impairs water quality. Impaired water quality harms the health and survival of salmon, other fish, shellfish, and our beloved but endangered Puget Sound resident orca whales. This course will include lectures, stories, videos, and discussions about the relationship between water quality and aquatic life in Puget Sound, actions underway to improve water quality and protect these valuable natural resources, and what each of us can do in our daily lives to contribute to a healthier Puget Sound.

This course is an introduction to the sciences of meteorology and climatology. Earth’s climate system involves the interactions of solar energy with water and with land, and the variabilities in these interactions that are created by the seasons. Here we explore weather and climate by starting with the global picture, then focus on some of the details of our local picture, perched as we are on the western edge of a continent with a massive ocean to our west and 2 significant mountain ranges nearby. We will discuss weather vs climate; global distribution of solar energy; atmospheric composition, ozone, heat, greenhouse effect, pressure & winds; formation & effects of the Polar Jet Stream, tropical storms (hurricanes); the climate crisis; and weather & climate of the Puget Sound region.

Often overlooked in traditional design and architecture courses, the women designers of the 20th century have had a profound influence upon the way we perceive, experience, and enjoy our built environments, interiors, and decorative objects. This class explores and richly illustrates the work and influence of such designers and architects as Elsie de Wolfe, Eileen Gray, Lilly Reich, Charlotte Perriand, Dorothy Draper, Ray Eames, Zaha Hadid, and others. Their lives and the beauty of their enduring designs are documented within the context of the social and political issues they faced, as they left their unmistakable imprints upon 20th century design.

This swift survey course will examine the changes in the Western World from the fall of Rome through the constriction of the Dark Ages to the beginnings of the Medieval era proper. During these 500 years we will see the resurrection of culture and the reestablishment of thinking, all based on faith. Interwoven with the reawakening of Europe we will explore the beginnings and flowering of Islam in the Middle East and the rich intermingling of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures in medieval Spain. We will also delve into the regional stories of the Middle Ages including “The Song of Roland”, “Beowulf” and others. 

Miles Davis is perhaps the most influential musician in the history of jazz. In the course of a long career that began in 1945 and continued (with a brief, mysterious hiatus from 1975-81) until his death in 1991, Miles was a central figure in the development of cool jazz, hard bop, and fusion. This course will examine the innovations and controversy the trumpeter contributed to jazz. The instructor, Brent Jensen, will present video & audio examples, live musical demonstrations and resources (bibliography, websites) to the class as we explore the life and times of the legendary and enigmatic Miles Dewey Davis. 

As compatriots and composers, Scriabin and Stravinsky are inextricably linked. The influence of the elder Scriabin’s highly innovative symbolist, mystical and dissonant “Poem of Ecstasy” on the younger Stravinsky is astonishingly portrayed in Stravinsky’s explosive revolutionary work, “The Rite of Spring.” Between them they created an early modern musical revolution.

“Big Data” may have Orwellian connotations of Big Brother, but we’ll look at the more benign and interesting social aspects of what Big Data can tell us about ourselves. People may lie to friends, lovers, doctors, and even themselves. But their internet searches, likes, views, swipes, and clicks reveal the truth. How many Americans are actually racist? Do parents treat sons differently from daughters? What do pregnant women really think about? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? How has our language changed? Also, we’ll look at many, diverse infographics, which are fascinating new visual ways of displaying who we actually are.