91̽��

A new art installation hanging from the rafters in the Art and Media Center completes a circle that began with two inquisitive students in the late 1970s. David Rabkin ’79 and Justin Aborn ’79 were in their junior year when they built a large, recumbent tricycle called the “A-Rab.”

“Both of us were fiddlers,” says David, who is now the Farinon director for current science and technology at the Museum of Science in Boston. “We liked building, and we were always taking stuff apart and putting it back together again. The idea of the trike came about because we really wanted to learn how to weld. Welding is one of the great crafts, being able to work with metal and bond it in a way to make it really strong.”

They approached Michael Bentinck-Smith, who was the woodworking teacher in the Lower School at the time. He agreed to teach them to weld, but to count the work as an independent project, they needed a solid idea and design.

“Something that went fast with wheels made sense to our adolescent minds,” says David. “We decided that a human-powered vehicle would be much more elegant, so the design grew from that idea. Back then, you could go to the dump and find building materials. So much of the trike came from the old 91̽�� dump!”

After 1,000 man-hours during the winter, the trike was ready to ride that spring. Ian Torney ‘82, chair of the visual arts department, says he remembers David and Jason riding the trike around campus. After they graduated, the trike sat in David’s mother’s garage until 1997, when they extensively refurbished it for an arts festival. This time it was stored more carefully, so when they took it out of the garage in 2013 to hang in the AMC, it was in much better shape.

“Seeing the trike hanging in the AMC is very satisfying,” says David. “It does my own and Justin’s heart good to know that it’s somewhere other people will enjoy it. It’s an interesting form. From where it is hung, you get to look at from all angles; it looks different from various directions, and you can appreciate a whole other dimension of it. 91̽�� students are so bright and motivated, so if even a little inspiration is derived from looking at it, and that leads somewhere interesting, that is great. If it opens a door and shakes up someone’s mental model of something they were thinking about, then we’ve achieved our mission.”

To watch David Rabkin riding the bike, .

Charles Dickens’s story Nicholas Nickleby will unfold on the stage of King Theatre as more than 20 Class IV students bring to life the nineteenth-century adventures of a young boy traveling to London to seek his fortune. Performing arts faculty member Eleza Moyer, the play’s director, says although the story addresses serious issues, the light-hearted moments are many. 91̽��’s version of the story is slimmed-down from the original eight-hour adaptation.

Zachary Mustin plays Ralph Nickleby, the ruthless uncle who does everything he can to prevent Nicholas from succeeding. Zach says the Class IV Play is a great experience because it gives freshmen the chance to portray major roles and get to know one another. He is also relishing his part: “It’s fun to shout and sound evil! The whole experience is so different from plays I did when I was younger.”

Dorsey Glew plays Smike, an older boy whom Nicholas befriends and runs away with to London. “I performed roles in my middle school plays, but this character has so many layers, which is a cool challenge,” says Dorsey.

The Class IV Play, a long-standing performing arts tradition at 91̽��, is an all-inclusive and beloved class project. Class IV students not on stage are contributing behind the scenes, acting as ushers, poster designers, or joining the audience in support of their classmates. Nicholas Nickleby runs in King Theatre on Thursday, November 13, and Friday, November 14, at 7:30 p.m., and on Saturday, November 15 at 7 p.m.

This weekend, 91̽��’s Knights of the Round Table fill King Theatre with Broadway-style song and dance as they search the kingdom for the Holy Grail in Monty Python’s Spamalot. The quest begins Thursday, October 30, and Friday, October 31, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, November 1, at 7 p.m.

Click on the link below to try your hand at Spamalot trivia.

Linde Eyster enjoys looking closely at things—as a scientist, as a teacher, and as a photographer. For the past few years, she focused on the natural environment in her backyard garden, photographing a range of organisms with a macro lens. The result is a stunning, colorful collection on exhibition in Pieh Commons.

“I wanted the photos to tell biological stories,” says Linde, who has taught a variety of life science courses at 91̽�� since 1990. “So, you’re not just looking at a photo of two ants. You are looking at a biological process. The ants are on a stem guiding the tiny aphids up and down, because the ants are dependent on the aphids for their nourishment.”

Linde shot all the images outside in natural light, with the subjects in their usual patterns and environment. The project grew out of a cross-curricular biodiversity assignment she assigned her Advanced Biology students, who were required to find and photograph a dozen different invertebrates on campus or near their homes.

“I did the assignment myself to estimate how long it would take to accomplish, and the project reawakened my love of photographing little things,” says Linde. “Even without a camera in hand, I love the surprises of looking closely in the leaves and stems in my small garden where I witness both amazing organisms and fascinating animal behaviors.”

Linde’s friend and fellow faculty member Bryan Cheney—a photographer and member of the visual arts department—answered her photography questions and helped her sort through hundreds of photos to select the ones to exhibit.

Linde’s interest in photography began as a child, when she occasionally converted the bathroom into a darkroom to develop her prints. For research toward her master’s degree, she took her first close-up photographs to document the colors of nudibranchs (sea slugs), which fade quickly when the organisms are placed into preservatives. During her doctoral research on embryonic shell formation at Northeastern University, she spent many hours photographing subcellular structures with transmission electron microscopes, followed by hours of printing thousands of black and white images of cells and cell parts. Many of these images were published in her scientific papers.

“Without realizing it, I was learning skills through my microscope photography, such as composing the shot, finding the right angle, and cropping to focus on the elements you want,” says Linde.

Looking Closely: My Garden 2011–2014 opens this Friday at recess and will be on exhibit until the end of October.