Not all birds migrate - how to attract resident birds to your backyard during cold weathe

(BPT) - While beach-goers, sunbathers and other nature lovers may need to put their hobbies on hold when fall and winter arrive, bird watchers can continue to observe their feathered favorites from the comfort of their own homes. Bird watching through fall and winter simply requires you to know which birds are likely to visit your backyard and to ensure your outdoor spaces are as inviting to them as possible, with the right food and feeders for every avian taste.
Not all birds fly south for the winter. Those who do are likely looking for their favorite foods — like nectar, insects or fruit — that aren’t usually available when the weather turns cold. Birds that eat seed are more likely to stay put and that means you can entice them to your backyard by serving their preferred varieties. Quality seed mixes and suet options are wholesome, nourishing fare for many kinds of birds that don’t migrate.
Here are some songbirds that you might see in your area this winter, as well as some suggestions for what to serve in order to tempt them to visit your yard:
* Goldfinches — Common throughout the United States, most goldfinches migrate, but in some areas, they will stay for the winter. During colder months their feathers fade to a yellowish green. These bright beauties primarily eat seed, so they’ll appreciate a premium blend of sunflower meats and niger seed, like Finch Friends by Cole’s. The finch mix is designed to work well in all kinds of tubular feeders, and is also appealing to purple finches and pine siskins.
* Blue Jays — Big, beautiful and blue, these jays range from Midwestern states to the East Coast and can be found year-round. Entice them to your backyard this winter by serving suet and sunflower seeds or a blend that features sunflower meats. They also love peanuts, so try incorporating this high-protein, high-fat offering into the fare you serve through a product like Natural Peanut Suet.
* Cardinals — Although the splash of a cardinal’s bright red plumage against the snow is iconic winter imagery, these birds actually stay year-round in their habitat of Midwestern to Eastern states. Cardinals are fans of virtually any kind of seed (except niger) and suet, so stock your feeders with a variety of seed mixes. Supply their favorite Safflower seed and you might see a cardinal at every feeder this winter!
* Chickadees — The black-capped chickadee is probably the most recognizable member of the chickadee family, and you’ll almost certainly see them in your backyard this winter if you live in the northern half of the country. Seeds make up about half their diet in winter, so they will spend a lot of time dining in your backyard if you serve a variety of seeds. They also need fat to weather winter cold, so stock up on suet, too.
* Eastern towhee — With plumage that resembles a robin, towhees occupy middle states and range east. Those that live in mid-Atlantic and southern states often forego migrating in winter. Towhees like seeds, berries, suet and small fruits, so look for options that incorporate more than one of their favorites, such as Suet Pearls from Cole’s. Serve this combination of nourishing sunflower meats and suet in a Mighty Mesh feeder or a Bountiful Bowl seed dish.
* Dark-eyed Junco — These small gray birds are found year-round in the northeast and north/central western states, but appear only in winter in the rest of the country.
While they primarily eat seeds and insects, they do appreciate some berries and suet when winter arrives, so entice them to your yard with Nutberry Suet Blend, which combines premium fruits, preferred nuts, whole kernels of sunflower meat, and insect suet kibbles. The blend also appeals to bluebirds and warblers.
Regardless of where you live and what birds you’re trying to attract, remember they need fresh water and roosting spots throughout the year. Be sure to serve a variety of food options in a range of feeders — from tubular to dishes — and you’ll be able to enjoy bird-watching throughout the winter.

1-man ‘Christmas Carol’ this week at East Haven library

EAST HAVEN. Local families are invited to enjoy Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at The Hagaman Memorial Library on Wednesday in a one-man show by New York storyteller Jonathan Kruk, who five years ago turned one of his favorite classic tales into a theatrical performance.

“It’s the most perfect tale of hope and redemption of the holidays,” said Kruk. “People will get a dramatic and kind of haunting performance of this classic tale.”

Kruk was invited to do the show by the library after a tip by a local fan who has been attending Kruk’s shows at the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, New York, for several years.

Cynthia Gwiazda, community services librarian at the Hagaman Memorial Library, said she is excited for the community to see the show and hopes it will bring some holiday spirit to the people of East Haven. The event is free and open to the public, but those who wish to attend are strongly encouraged to reserve seats, as they are limited. The library encourages folks to bring the whole family to this intimate experience.  lick here to continue reading.

Orange Historical Society Museum and Antique Shop open for business before holidays

The Orange Historical Society Museum and Antique Shop is gearing up for the  holidays with new and exciting antiques and collectibles, according to a release.  

The shop is open every Saturday from 10 a/m/ to 3 p.m. and will happily receive shoppers at the Tree
Lighting Events on December 6 from 3 to 6 p.m., the release said.  

Come browse in the shop for those  holiday gifts and don't forget those hostess gifts that come in handy when a spur of the moment invite comes your way."

You can also purchase tickets for the Breakfast For Dinner, a fundraiser at Chip's on Dec. 8, the release said.  

 

Call Phyllis at 203 795-4549 and pick up your ticket at the door.  There are three sittings, 5, 6 & 7 p.m..  Please specify the time you wish.  For information about the museum call 203 795-3106

Sage Ricotta Crostini with Sugared Cranberries

From the Bangor Daily News

When artist Eric Zelz came to me with the idea for this column — to create an illustrated food feature every week — I immediately fell in love with the concept. And since summer 2014, we’ve created dozens and dozens of recipe and illustration pairings.

Last week, when we were talking about this week’s piece, I decided to do something a little different. Instead of just deciding on a recipe and mulling over concepts together, I challenged Eric to choose an ingredient that I would craft a recipe around.

His response? “How about cranberries?!”

Being so close to the holidays, I immediately thought about appetizers and pictured sugared cranberries, which I have seen everywhere lately. I’ve cooked with fresh cranberries dozens of times — not just making a variety of cranberry-based sauces, but baking them into desserts of all kinds and even whirling them with fresh ingredients for a tart, spicy salsa. Too tart to be eaten alone, I wasn’t sure they’d taste very good even covered in sugar.

But, hey, how would I know if I didn’t try? Those sparkly little balls intrigued me.

After reading up on them a bit, I discovered that they are shockingly easy to make. You start by making a simple syrup — just sugar, water and vanilla, in this case. Then you soak the berries in it overnight. It tempers the tartness while also giving the sugar for the outside something to cling. The next day, you drain, toss with sugar and use them however you like.

When I tried them, I discovered that they’re sweet-tart balls of fruity goodness. And absolutely perfect for pairing with a savory spread with a hint of sweetness, which is exactly what the Sage Ricotta Spread is.

Consider making this crostini for your holiday celebration. It’s easy, but no one needs to know that.

Earthy sage-flavored ricotta cheese is spread on thin crostini toasts and topped with those craveable sweet-tart sugared cranberries. It’s a symphony of flavors, so easy and looks impressive to boot. You just can’t go wrong.

While, yes, these are something that takes a little planning and requires two days of work, the actual process itself couldn’t be simpler.

That’s also how I feel about this column and its illustration. When Eric suggested it, my only concern was finding the time — both myself and him — to work on this each week. Could we really create something so special each week, and find time in our schedules for it?

Click here to continue reading.

Nest Eggs of Autumn, 1965

Posted by James L. Macdonald, Retired Senior Editor, Merrill Anderson Co.

In the 1950's Chase Manhattan's nest-eggers sailed and skied and hunted. By 1965, as the iconic ad campaign was winding down, guns and yachts gave way to agriculture and animal husbandry.

100 Years to Live

This is one of my favorite songs but it could also be a poem. Whenever I hear it I think of my father. It's was written and performed by John Ondrasilk who performs under the name, Five for Fighting.
--TG

100 Years to Live

I'm fifteen for a moment

Caught in between ten and twenty

And I'm just dreaming

Counting the ways to where you are

I'm twenty two for a moment

She feels better than ever

And we're on fire

Making our way back from Mars

Fifteen there's still time for you

Time to buy and time to lose

Fifteen, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got hundred years to live

I'm thirty three for a moment

Still the man, but you see I'm of age

A kid on the way

A family on my mind

I'm forty five for a moment

The sea is high

And I'm heading into a crisis

Chasing the years of my life

Fifteen there's still time for you

Time to buy, time to lose yourself

Within a morning star

Fifteen I'm all right with you

Fifteen, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got hundred years to live

Half time goes by

Suddenly you're wise

Another blink of an eye

Sixty seven is gone

The sun is getting high

We're moving on

I'm ninety nine for a moment

Dying for just another moment

And I'm just dreaming

Counting the ways to where you are

Fifteen there's still time for you

Twenty two I feel her too

Thirty three you're on your way

Every day's a new day

Fifteen there's still time for you

Time to buy and time to choose

Hey fifteen, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got hundred years to live

Suffragette—Movie Review

Suffragette

by Peter J. O'Connell

Suffragette. Released: Oct. 2015. Runtime: 106 mins. Rated: PG-13 for some intense violence, thematic elements, brief strong language and partial nudity.

Suffragette is the story of how one Englishwoman in the years before World War I came to join the movement to obtain the vote for women and how her life was changed by that decision.

In 1912 Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) and her husband, Sonny (Ben Whishaw), are workers in an industrial laundry in London. The work is grueling and the conditions harsh. Among other things, female employees are subject to sexual harassment by the foremen.

One day Maud encounters a demonstration by women for the vote. The previously nonviolent suffrage movement, frustrated by the adamant refusal of the establishment to grant political equality, has begun to use militant tactics. The women in the demonstration throw rocks and break windows.

Maud seeks to avoid involvement in what is going on. Like many working-class women, she has tended to view the suffrage movement as something composed of upper-middle-class women, such as the famed Emmeline Pankhurst. But when the demonstration is brutally broken up by the police, Maud protests.

Her protest leads to gradually increasing participation in the movement, which more and more working-class women begin to support. It also leads her to dramatic acts of resistance against the exploitation of women in the workplace. Eventually, she even testifies before a parliamentary committee.

Betrayal by politicians leads Maud to more and more activism, as some women even plant bombs. She forges strong bonds with an apothecary (Hugh Ellyn), who is a male supporter of the movement, and his wife (Helena Bonham Carter). She finds a memorable speech by Mrs. Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) to be inspirational.

Maud's activism, however, draws the attention of a police inspector (Brendan Gleeson) and leads to rough times for her. Even worse, it causes severe problems in her relationship with her husband and leads to a heartbreaking development with reference to her beloved child (Adam Michael Dodd). Eventually, Maud finds herself in a protest directed at the king himself, an event that results in a tragedy but also a historical turning point.

As Maud, Cary Mulligan, who played an independent-minded woman of Victorian times earlier this year in Far From the Madding Crowd, is appealing in her sensitivity and impressive in her gradually increasing strength. The rest of the cast appropriately surrounds and supports Mulligan's depiction of Maud's evolution. And the script by Abi Morgan (a woman) thoughtfully shows how Maud came to resist various forms of subordination imposed on her as a woman—political powerlessness, workplace exploitation, inequitable traditions and laws of family life.

One might perhaps wish that the film had been imparted a more intense quality by director Sarah Gavron, but Suffragette is definitely a fine work reminding us how far women have come in the past 100 years, what it took to make that journey, and, perhaps, how much more there is yet to travel.

“Footnote” to the film: (1) Helena Bonham Carter is the great-granddaughter of H.H. Asquith, who was the LiberalPrime Minister of Britain, 1908-1916, during the height of the suffrage movement, which he staunchly opposed. (2) Helen Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, and her daughter Laura have small roles in Suffragette.

Wallingford Senior Center Snowman Pancake Breakfast

 

Sunday, December 6, 2015, 9 am – 12 pm

Snowman pancakes are back! Celebrate the season by sharing a hot, freshly prepared breakfast with others in the community. Enjoy snowman-shaped pancakes, french toast, ham, vegetarian sausage, beverages, and more! This event is sponsored by Windermere Real Estate, Seattle – Lakeview.

$5 adults / $3 kids. All are welcome! Advance registration appreciated.

Advanced reservations appreciated.

For more information click here.

Happy Holidays! Annual Craft and Holiday Fair

Meriden Senior Center
Wednesday Dec. 2nd 10am-12pm


The knitting, sewing, and ceramic classes/clubs will be selling their beautiful homemade items. There will also be a bake sale and raffles. The fair is open to the public. Anyone interested in baking, or having a table please call the Senior Center. 

How a disorienting simulation is generating empathy in dementia care

The Dementia Tour at Island Nursing Home and Care Center Dementia Tour involves wearing goggles, gloves and ear phones to impair senses to simulate what an elderly person with dementia may experience in daily life. The simulation the room was lit only by strobe lights to further increase disorientation. Buy Photo

DEER ISLE, Maine — For family caregivers or health professionals caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, compassion is not enough.

“Compassion is essential, but if you have empathy, too, it’s a whole different thing,” Kate Robinson, a registered nurse at the Island Nursing Home and Care Center in Deer Isle, said. And because empathy, by definition, can only be achieved by having shared the experience of dementia and its associated emotions, the facility does its best to provide the opportunity.

Using a program called Virtual Dementia Tour, nursing staff, community members and other caregivers approximate the cognitive, emotional and physiological changes associated with age-related dementia. In the past year, the nursing home has provided the tour, free of charge, to emergency responders, hospice workers, family caregivers, hospital workers and others in the community, as well as to their own nursing staff.

I drove down to Deer Isle recently to check it out. Here’s what happened:

Outfitted with knobby shoe inserts to simulate the discomfort of bunions, bulky cloth gloves for neuralgia and light-restricting goggles for macular degeneration, I am led alone into a very dark room I have never been in before. I am wearing a headset that delivers a stream of broken conversation, laughter, fragments of music and rushing background noise into my ears — confusion, anxiety, distractibility — punctuated by periodic explosions, collisions and sirens (nerves). Before the door closes behind me, I am verbally instructed, in a quick sequence of sentences, to complete five tasks while in the room:

— Find your white sweater and put it on.

— Set the table for lunch.

— Fold the towels.

— Write a four-sentence note to your family.

— Fill the glass half-full with water.

The door shuts. The room is black, except for some weak strobe lighting. I can navigate it only by groping around with those gloved hands, shuffling and mincing to avoid falling, peering through the tiny holes of the goggles, trying to ignore the aural assault of the headset.

What was the first task? A sweater. It must be here somewhere. I walk smack into a round table. There’s no sweater here, but I find a pile of plastic utensils and some paper napkins. I know how to set a table, but I can’t really see it and there’s something I can’t identify in the way. So I set two places, clumsily, and leave the rest of the utensils in a heap.

I’m still looking for the sweater. I can’t remember the other tasks. I shuffle around, timid, hands outstretched, unsure of how far into the darkened room I’m allowed to venture. After a time, a shadowy figure emerges out of nowhere and takes me firmly by the elbow. “You’re doing just fine,” a voice shouts above the din in my ears. That’s a lie, I think, with some irritation. Still, it is comforting to know someone is paying attention. I am led further into the room, and then again I am alone.

I stumble against another table, smaller than the first. My clumsy fingers pick up a long, narrow object. A pen? To write a note to my family? I search for the ink tip or for a cap to pull off. Nothing. A siren begins wailing in my ear. I turn over the object and realize it’s a toothbrush. Was brushing my teeth one of my tasks? I find a tube of something on the table and assume it’s toothpaste. I squeeze some onto the brush, somewhere near where the bristles must be, then think better of the whole idea. There’s no cup of water, for one thing, and where would I spit, and who else has used that toothbrush?

“Where is that sweater?” The echoing voice is mine, amplified somehow by the headset. The sweater’s existence is one thing in this weird netherworld I feel certain of. I find myself standing over a bed. Faintly, I see a blurred scattering of light-colored cloth on the dark coverlet. Is there a sweater here? I identify a tee shirt, some neckties, socks. Some small hand towels. No sweater. There’s a blast of noise in my ear like a car crash. I wander away, then come back and fold the towels. It’s something I know how to do. I am pretty sure it was on the list.

On the other side of the room, I bump into yet another table. My eyes make out a flat, white rectangle of paper. I find the pen. I haven’t really thought about what to say in my note. In the dark, here’s what comes out, in big, misshapen letters:

“I am very confused. I can’t find my sweater. The room is so dark. I don’t know what to do next. Love, Mom”

I write the short sentences deliberately, a little bit theatrically. But, even as I form them, I can too easily imagine writing them in desperation, fury, despair.

I don’t know what to do next. Where the hell is the sweater?

I grope in the strobing darkness for a few more minutes, frustration building in me. How much longer do have to do this? I am grateful when a firm hand takes my elbow and steers me to the doorway.

Back out in the bright hallway, it is a relief to lift that noisy headset off my ears. I stand up tall, laughing and confident as I pull off the goggles, peel off the gloves and remove the lumpy inserts from my shoes. I was fumbling in the dark for about 10 minutes. Glad that’s over.

But for people with dementia, it is never over. It only gets worse, and it can last for years.

Becky Siebert, a longtime nurse and care coordinator at The Island Nursing Home and Care Center, says that about 85 percent of the residents there suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Until recently, staff have not had the tools to understand what life is like for those residents.

Now, every employee of the facility is required to take the Virtual Dementia Tour, with a goal of improving the care provided to the residents.

Of course, no one really knows what goes on inside the head of someone with dementia, and no simple, 10-minute experience can tell us that. Outward manifestations are easier to see and can include a shuffling gait, forgetfulness, obsessive behavior, distractibility, inability to complete familiar tasks, talking to oneself, timidity and bursts of anger.

“We see that people who go through this short training often exhibit behaviors associated with dementia themselves,” Siebert says. The experience helps caregivers, both family members and professional staff, understand some basic guidelines, she says.

Slow down. Speak clearly. Be patient. Use simple sentences. Minimize outside noise. Organize rooms for light, simplicity and safety. Give plenty of guidance.

Since introducing the dementia training, the nursing facility has stopped piping music through its overhead system. The facility also no longer makes overhead announcements and provides plenty of space away from foot traffic, television or other unneeded stimulation. Home caregivers can take some of the same measures.

Cognitive changes associated with dementia include memory loss, difficulty communicating, difficulty with simple and complex tasks, difficulty with planning and organizing, loss of coordination and problems with orientation. Psychological changes may include personality changes, inability to reason, paranoia, agitation and hallucinations.

Symptoms typically worsen over time. People with advanced forms of dementia often develop infections, malnutrition and injuries related to falls.  Click here to continue reading.

Lobster, ricotta and pumpkin ravioli

Serving lobster for Thanksgiving is actually more traditional than tucking into turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. Shellfish such a lobster, clams and mussels were a common part of the Native American diet in 1621 and likely formed part of the original Thanksgiving Day feast.

Because I grew up in a lobster fishing family, lobster has almost always featured in my Thanksgiving celebrations. In my home town, lobster and clams are often steamed prior to the Thanksgiving dinner and served as part of a communal meal (the lobster meat is picked out prior to the meal and served buffet style alongside turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes). Other friends of mine plate up boiled lobster as the focal point of their Thanksgiving feast, skipping the turkey all together.

This year I wanted to try a more innovative lobster dish for Thanksgiving.  I love lobster ravioli and I love pumpkin ravioli so I decided to combine the two and I must say the result was delicious. The mixture is a wonderful blend of savory and sweet and the incorporation of pumpkin and nutmeg make it a fabulous first course to your Thanksgiving feast.

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Lobster, ricotta and pumpkin ravioli

Author: Christina Lemieux

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 6

This creamy, lobster, ricotta and pumpkin ravioli is a wonderful blend of savory and sweet. The incorporation of pumpkin and nutmeg make it a fabulous first course to your Thanksgiving feast.

Ingredients

• Meat from four pound and a half lobsters (the meat from one small lobster should be enough for two guests)
• Six tablespoons of butter
• One Cup of milk
• Two tablespoons of butter
• A pinch of nutmeg
• A pinch of Cayenne pepper
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• A cup of ricotta cheese
• 4 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese
• 3 tablespoons of canned pumpkin
• fresh egg noodle lasagna sheets (or you can make your own ravioli pasta from scratch if you have the equipment)
• Two tablespoons of melted butter for sealing up the ravioli

Instructions

1. Cook the lobsters and pick out the meat.
2. Hand tear the meat into very small chunks (about the size of a dime).
3. Sauté the lobster meat in a frypan with the butter for about 4 minutes.
4. Add the flour and milk and keep stirring over a low heat until you have a nice wet sauce around the lobster
5. Turn off the heat and tir in a the ricotta and mascarpone cheese cheese and the canned pumpkin. Keep tasting the mixture and if you desire a slightly creamer, sweeter mixture, add in a bit more mascarpone.
6. Flavor with nutmeg, Cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.
7. Cut the egg noodles (or your homemade pasta) into 40 ravioli-sized squares and add a dollop of the lobster mixture to half of the squares and rub all edges of those pasta squares with melted butter.
8. Add the top square of pasta to each ravioli and seal all the edges, making sure all air is out of the pocket. I press a fork along the edges of the ravioli to ensure they're properly sealed.
9. Bring a large pot of water to a gentle boil and drop the ravioli in 3 or 4 at a time, making sure not to overcrowd the pot.
10. Cook for about 5 minutes or until done.
11. Serve with a light, buttery sauce such as my champagne sauce.

Notes

The ravioli can be assembled in the morning of and placed in the fridge so all you have to do is cook the ravioli 15 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 6 (appetizer)

Lobster, pumpkin and ricotta ravioli being assembled.

The quantities I’ve provided in this recipe work well as an appetiser and should serve about six people, with each person having three large ravioli. I have not included a recipe for a sauce to serve with this dish but it would go well with a champagne sauce.  I would serve this dish with a nice White Burgundy wine.

About Christina Lemieux

Christina Lemieux Oragano grew up in Cutler, Maine, where her family have been in the lobster industry for four generations. She worked as a stern'man' on her father's boat for ten summers before graduating from college and beginning a career in advertising. While her job has taken her from Maine to San Francisco, New York and then to London, she has remained committed and connected to the Maine lobster industry. Her blogging, book writing, and experimentation with lobster recipes are testimony to her devotion to America's favorite crustacean.

Click here to Read more at the Bangor Daily News.

Pumpkin Pecan Bites

I wish every morning could start like last Wednesday. The kids were off from school for Veteran’s Day, and I was off from work as well. The day began quietly, slowly. We all rose on our own schedules, and found our way to the living room.

We decided to put on a movie. I made waffles. We tried to FaceTime my mom to wish her happy birthday. We wound our way through the morning, without any rush. And when we were ready, we dressed and headed south for an afternoon adventure.

It was, in a word, relaxed.

I am guilty of not having enough relaxed mornings. It just seems like there’s always something to do and somewhere to be. Practice, meetings, deadlines, buses to catch. Our social calendar always seems filled, and our wish list of things to do grows all the time. But sometimes we need time like that to recharge.

Kids too.

I am grateful for that morning, and for all the laughter and fun of that day. It was just what we all needed.

Speaking of gratitude, that immeasurable feeling of appreciation and thankfulness that we seem to notice more at this time of year, Thanksgiving is coming. Take that day to connect with your loved ones. Show them how grateful you are for them in your life.

But don’t let Thanksgiving be the only time you do.

Thankfulness and gratitude should be something we share all year — not just on the fourth Thursday in November. Our loved ones matter all the time. They deserve our attention, our love, our appreciation. And they need to know how much we care. It’s part of loving with your whole heart.  Please click here to continue reading.

Experimenter—Movie Review

Experimenter

by Peter J. O’Connell

Experimenter. Released: Oct. 2015. Runtime: 98 mins. Rated: PG-13 for thematic material and brief strong language.

In late 1961 and early 1962, residents of the New Haven, Connecticut, area who had answered an ad to take part in a study of memory and learning descended into the lower level of a 19^th-century building at Yale University. There they were instructed by a man in a white coat with a clipboard to teach word associations to an unseen “learner” in another room, whom, they were told, was strapped into a chair and hooked up to device that could provide electric shocks. The device was to be controlled by the volunteer “teacher.”

The teaching method was unconventional. If the strapped-in individual, who could be heard but not seen, gave a wrong answer to the “teacher,” he was to be administered an electric shock. The intensity of the shocks was to be increased, the more wrong answers that the “learner” gave. The “teacher” was told to ignore any of the “learner’s” cries of pain, demands to be set free, or pleas to stop because of damage to health. And, most surprising of all, the “teacher” was told not to be concerned about any ominous silence from the other room after a series of shocks. Results of the experiment: About two-thirds of the “teachers” continued to administer shocks up to the very highest levels despite the cries, demands, pleas from the other room. Many “teachers” expressed reluctance but yielded to that white-coated authority figure in the room with them.

This experiment, known as the “obedience to authority” experiment, or sometimes simply the “Yale experiment,“ is one of the most noted—even notorious—in the history of behavioral science. As soon as it became known, it became controversial and has remained so ever since. You see, both the “learner” and the authority figure were simply confederates of the experimenter. No one was ever actually hooked up to a machine. The cries of pain, etc., were simply acting. Yet the results obtained—the obedience of the two-thirds—were shocking, particularly as the experiment was conducted around the time of the highly publicized trial in Jerusalem of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, with his “just following orders” defense and observer Hannah Arendt’s writings on the “banality of evil.”

The experimenter in the Yale experiment was Stanley Milgram, a young professor of social psychology. The Experimenter, written and directed by Michael Almereyda, is the story of the experiment and some of its consequences for Milgram. Milgram is portrayed (by Peter Sarsgard) as a sensitive individual, but an ivory-tower type who did not foresee that his work would be considered unethical by many because of the type of deception involved and the possible psychological harm to the “teachers,” even though no “learner” was actually physically harmed

Milgram was denied a desired position at Harvard, most likely because of the controversy around the Yale experiment, and eventually ended up at City University of New York. There he conducted several other important experiments, including one that led to his postulating of the concept that everyone in the world might be connected by no more than “six degrees of separation.” Milgram died at a relatively early age but had a happy marriage to his wife, Sasha (Winona Ryder), who manifested a mixture of support and concern about what he was doing.

The performances of Sarsgard and Ryder are fine and the depiction of the obedience experiment is fascinating. Fascinating, too, is the way that director Almereyda gives an “experimental” feel to his film about an experiment by using a number of distancing techniques, what Bertolt Brecht called “alienation effects,” to make us think about such matters as how to distinguish appearance from reality. These techniques include: “breaking of the fourth wall” by having Milgram directly address the audience; use of a variety of film stocks, from full-color to black-and-white to gray to mixtures; use of obvious back projection rather than in-place filming; use of obviously painted or photographed backdrops, a la a play, rather than fully furnished sets; patently fake beards. Most striking of all, in some scenes Milgram wanders down institutional corridors addressing the audience while followed by an elephant. Why? Could it be to suggest that there is the proverbial “800-lb. elephant” in the room that people don’t acknowledge at first? That elephant might be the ethical concerns that emerged when Milgram’s experiment became known, concerns that the experimenter did not envision.

In any case, Milgram’s experiment has provoked thought for years. And Almereyda’s film about it is thought-provoking in both substance and style.

“Footnote” to the film: Earlier this year The Stanford Prison Experiment, a film about another notorious social psychology experiment, had a brief run. Directed by Michael Alvarez and starring Billy Crudup, the movie depicted Prof. Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 experiment of having some Stanford University students go into a mock jail and assume the role of prisoner, while other students assumed the role of guard. Zimbardo had to end the experiment after only six days, instead of 14, because the “guards” –and even Zimbardo himself—began to actually mistreat the “prisoners.” Milgram’s experiment dealt with “obedience to authority.” Zimbardo’s experiment ended up being about “abuse of authority.”