text:
Come and Go

Come and Go is a short play (described as a "dramaticule" on its title page) by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in January 1965 and first performed (in German) at the Schillertheater, Berlin on 14 January 1966. Its English language premiere was at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin on 28 February 1968, and its British premiere was at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 9 December 1968. It was written for and dedicated to the publisher John Calder.

Some critics consider this one of Beckett's most "perfect" plays: Beckett agonized over each individual line until they exactly matched his creative vision. The play varies between "121 and 127 words" in length, depending on the translation (his notes are significantly longer than the actual play), and as such is rarely performed on its own.

Synopsis
The play starts with three similar figures of "indeterminable" age, Flo, Vi, and Ru, sitting quietly on a narrow bench-like seat surrounded by darkness. They are childhood friends who once attended "Miss Wade's" together and sitting side by side in this manner is something they used to do in the playground back then. The three characters – unusually for Beckett – wear colourful full-length coats, albeit now dulled over time. They might give the impression of three faded flowers. "Drab nondescript hats … shade [their] faces."

Vi's opening line recalls the Three Witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth: "When did we three last meet?" ("When shall we three meet again?" - Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 1). "Their names, especially Ru's, recall the names of the flowers which Ophelia distributes to King Claudius and his court in her mad scene" (Hamlet - Act 4, Scene 5). Ru's/Vi's names bring to mind the phrases rue/flow which hold certain applicable implications to what transpires.

When together they make uneasy, highly stylized/processed small talk in an encounter that takes on a haunting ritual aspect. After a short time Vi, who is seated in the centre, rises and silently goes off stage. Once she is out of earshot Flo asks Ru how she thinks their absent friend is looking. "I see little change," Ru replies. Then Flo slides over to the middle to whisper an awful revelation to the other and swears her to secrecy. After this Vi returns and takes the seat vacated by Flo. The same scenario is then enacted twice more "[w]ith choreography suggestive of the sleight-of-hand artist (button under the thimble)" and with very similar dialogue until Vi finds herself back in the middle of the group; Ru and Flo's positions have however been reversed.

In this manner all three women at one point occupy the central position and all become privy to a secret about one of the others. Beckett said the action should be: "Stiff, slow, puppet-like." The audience however does not get to hear what is whispered. The initial response in each instance is a shocked, "Oh," though Beckett specified that each should be unique in some way. These three whispers present moments of dramatic climax in contrast to the otherwise slow and calm mood. The most sensational whispered information is unheard by the audience and thus creates more mystery and a sense of ongoing interconnection between the trio which includes sharing "secrets."

At the play's conclusion, the three link hands "in the old way" (reminiscent of Winnie's "old style" ) forming an unbroken Celtic knot. Finally Flo says, "I can feel the rings", though none are apparent.

Staging
In a fashion typical of Beckett, the stage directions are exactingly detailed and precise. There are many precise numerical aspects to both the construction and staging worked out for the play. Due to the complexity of the movements throughout the piece, Beckett included a diagram of each of the characters' positioning during the performance. A diagram of the aforementioned rings, and the way they should be formed from the actors' hands, is also included. During the course of the play, each woman follows a variant set of the same basic movements performed once each involving a carefully realized silent/slow exit and reentry, shifting sitting positions on the bench, a slide to center, the whispering movements, returning to facing front, etc. This could just as easily be a mathematical or musical "set" with the same numbers/notes appearing in three different orders.

The precision of the lighting isolates the three women and obscures individual details so that the combined effect of costume, lighting and ritual movement creates a sense of intense similarity between the "individuals" comprising the trio. The one prop (the bench, described with great precision in Beckett's notes accompanying the play) is lit so as to minimize its visibility. The women take on a ghostly aspect as they glide silently and disappear/reappear into/from the surrounding darkness.

Interpretations
The whole play's structure is circular (ring-like). It is divided into three exactly equal segments of seven lines during which a character exits and comes back in after completing their circuit, taking a different seat to the one they sat on originally. In this sense the characters also move around their seats in a ring shape.

Some speculate as to what the characters are discussing. From each response (Ru: (about Vi), "Does she not realise?" Vi: (about Flo), "Has she not been told?" Flo: (about Ru), "Does she not know?") it is not unreasonable to assume that each, perhaps, is in fact terminally ill but unaware of the fact. "The unspoken nature of the condemnation in the final version is more powerful [than in Human Wishes (see below)] precisely because it is less explicit. For while it leaves a mystery unresolved, it also tends to lead one beyond the particular illness of an individual woman to embrace the fate of all mankind." Other possibilities include a yet to be made public death or some other tragedy involving a personal connection to whatever is whispered for the absent character being whispered about.

The play might be seen as a coming of age situation. Vi yearns for the "old days", presumably when there were no awful secrets to tell but, at the same time, to which all three characters know there is no return. On one level "there is a sense of loss in the play, that the women will never regain the intimacy they once had together". Brenda Bynum, who has directed the play, feels the opposite, however: ‘Why does it have to be that they have lost something, why can it not be Beckett's longing for intimacy that they have and he can’t?’" Anthony Roche agrees: "[T]hey assert a strength through their interdependence which makes this play one of the most perfect theatrical ensembles ever devised."

The joining of the hands evokes the symbol for infinity. "The ritual gesture of clasped hands allows them to keep their secrets from each other, but the feeling of the rings evokes the cycle of time. Twice turned upon itself, the bond of the three women (forever linked in their untold secrets) is never again what it was, never again what it seems to be. Something is the same, and everything is different." "Superficially they make us think of the Three Graces as they link hands, but, more precisely, they resemble in appearance the three mothers in Fritz Lang's M, a film much loved by Beckett."

Whereas at the start of the play there is a reluctance to talk of the past, after each of the shocking revelations the three women willingly drift off into nostalgia as a means of coping with the present.

The rings that Flo says she feels "may be imagined a symbol of the frustrated hopes of youth, of marriages that never occurred [or failed] or equally their eternal union" that has kept them together throughout their personal tragedies. Or, perhaps, these women meet/exist outside of time and whatever rings they might have once worn have disappeared along the way.

"Ethereal though the women of Come and Go might be, they are substantial personae in comparison with the wraith-like beings of the ‘supplication plays.’ And painful though the shock to their sensibilities has been, they have the comforting presence of each other to offset their sadness. They comprise a community, and are therefore not wholly reliant on memory to remedy or sedate. No such comfort is available in the later dramaticules, however, where night after night alienated beings implore their loved ones to make their presence felt."

Background
"Morehampton House, [in Dublin] had originally been run by three spinster sisters and was commonly known … as "Miss Wade's." When Shelia and Molly Roe – Beckett's cousins – attended there during the First World War, "the school was run by two elderly ladies called Miss Irwin and Miss Molyneaux."

Human Wishes
In 1936 Beckett began a full-length play entitled Human Wishes (after the poem by Dr Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes). It was abandoned but in 1980 he allowed a fragment of this is to be published in Ruby Cohn's Just Play and was later made more widely available in Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment edited by Cohn.

"When the curtain rises, three women are seated, presumably encircled by the long gowns of the time [18th Century]. Mrs Williams is meditating, Mrs Desmoulins is knitting and Miss Carmichael is reading. During the course of the scene the latter two rise and temporarily leave their seats, but Mrs Williams's actions are confined to striking the floor with her stick."

Beckett may have been "motivated by the theme he clearly wishes to pursue: Johnson in love" but that is not what he ended up writing about. "The "three women look as though they might have emerged from tragedy. Their dialogue – especially Mrs Williams's lines – occasionally recalls Restoration comedy, but its substratum is human mortality, without hope of restoration. [On the other hand r]ather than … explicit references to death, Come and Go spirals delicately around absence and threat." "However, more than death, it is ‘the peevishness of decay’ that pervades the scene, illustrated by the petty bickering and punctuated by the repeated silences that threaten to stop what action there is." "The play fragment also points forward … to the elegant, old-fashioned language and formalised syntax of the three women in Come and Go."

Good Heavens
Flo, Vi, and Ru began their life as Viola, Rose and Poppy in a typescript now held at Reading University Library headed ‘Scene 1’. Poppy reads aloud from a titillating book, interrupted at intervals by the others. The revue-like style bears little resemblance to the finished work but it is clearly its genesis. The finished work "Come and Go" is extraordinary in its seeming simplicity built upon a rigorous and meticulous structure which has remarkable musical aspects in its formal discipline and clarity. Detailed analysis (identical to musical analysis of a score) is revelatory regarding Beckett's bridging the gap between composing with notes and writing with words/images. The parallels with specific musical techniques/terminology such as cells, permutations, variants, inversions, codas, counterpoint, dynamics, etc. are uncanny. The final structure of 'come and Go" could easily be the precise basis for a well-balanced and rigorously formal musical composition.

In subsequent drafts Beckett adds a title, Type of Confidence, which he changes to Good Heavens; the names also vanish to be replaced by the letters A, B and C. "Beckett began the play clearly with the structure of three confidential gossips clearly in mind … before going on to draft the play in full … Good Heavens is almost complete, apart from the final conversation between C and A. In both texts the conversation centres on two secrets: first how each woman manages to achieve her apparently flawless complexion and secondly the fact that the absent member of the trio is suffering from a terminal illness … The difference between what is said face to face and what is said behind the back of the missing person reveals both a devastating feminine hypocrisy and the irony that the secret is told by someone whom the hearer already knows (or soon discovers) to be doomed also. And most ironical of all, while each woman muses upon the fate of the other two, she remains supremely unaware of her own." The final austerity achieved in the minimal text manages to reduce the triviality normally associated with "gossip." It is contained within a sustained potent atmosphere that is only briefly interrupted at the three whispering moments.

In a later draft Beckett introduces "three sorrowing husbands – all conspicuously absent from the marital home:

Rose (of Poppy):  I ran into her husband at the Gaiety. He is half crazed with grief. Poppy (of Vi):  Her husband wrote me from Madeira. He is heartbroken Vi (of Rose):          Her husband called me from Naples. He was weeping over the wire.

The fact that the whispered secret in Come and Go relates to life expectancy is made "more explicit [in Good Heavens], even spelling out the terminal date of the third friend's incurable ailment (‘Three months. At the outside … Not a suspicion. She thinks it is heartburn’ )."

Eleuthéria
"The three women [in Eleuthéria], Mesdames Krap, Meck and Piouk, look forward to Flo, Vi and Ru in Come and Go in their repeated concern for each other's appearance and health; in addition, like the women of the later short play, two of them, Violette and Marguerite, have flower-inspired Christian names."

title: Come and Go


text:
Armory Show

The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibitions that have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories.

The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. The exhibition went on to the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston, where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed.

The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism and Cubism. The show served as a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent and created their own "artistic language."

"'The origins of the show lie in the emergence of progressive groups and independent exhibitions in the early 20th century (with significant French precedents), which challenged the aesthetic ideals, exclusionary policies, and authority of the National Academy of Design, while expanding exhibition and sales opportunities, enhancing public knowledge, and enlarging audiences for contemporary art.'"

History

On December 14, 1911, an early meeting of what would become the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS) was organized at Madison Gallery in New York. Four artists met to discuss the contemporary art scene in the United States, and the possibilities of organizing exhibitions of progressive artworks by living American and foreign artists, favoring works ignored or rejected by current exhibitions. The meeting included Henry Fitch Taylor, Jerome Myers, Elmer Livingston MacRae and Walt Kuhn.

In January 1912, Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies joined with some two dozen of their colleagues to reinforce a professional coalition: AAPS. They intended the organization to "lead the public taste in art, rather than follow it." Other founding AAPS members included D. Putnam Brinley, Gutzon Borglum, John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke, Leon Dabo, William J. Glackens, Ernest Lawson, Jonas Lie, George Luks, Karl Anderson, James E.Fraser, Allen Tucker, and J. Alden Weir. AAPS was to be dedicated to creating new exhibition opportunities for young artists outside of the existing academic boundaries, as well as to providing educational art experiences for the American public. Davies served as president of AAPS, with Kuhn acting as secretary.

The AAPS members spent more than a year planning their first project: the International Exhibition of Modern Art, a show of giant proportions, unlike any New York had seen. The 69th Regiment Armory was settled on as the main site for the exhibition in the spring of 1912, rented for a fee of $5,000, plus an additional $500 for additional personnel. It was confirmed that the show would later travel to Chicago and Boston.

Once the space had been secured, the most complicated planning task was selecting the art for the show, particularly after the decision was made to include a large proportion of vanguard European work, most of which had never been seen by an American audience. In September 1912, Kuhn left for an extended collecting tour through Europe, including stops at cities in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, visiting galleries, collections and studios and contracting for loans as he went. While in Paris Kuhn met up with Pach, who knew the art scene there intimately, and was friends with Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse; Davies joined them there in November 1912. Together they secured three paintings that would end up being among the Armory Show's most famous and polarizing: Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) and Madras Rouge (Red Madras Headdress), and Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. Only after Davies and Kuhn returned to New York in December did they issue an invitation for American artists to participate.

Pach was the only American artist to be closely affiliated with the Section d'Or group of artists, including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Duchamp brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon and others. Pach was responsible for securing loans from these painters for the Armory Show. Most of the artists in Paris who sent works to the Armory Show knew Pach personally and entrusted their works to him. The Armory Show was the first, and ultimately the only exhibition mounted by the AAPS.

In 1913, the art collector and lawyer John Quinn fought to overturn censorship laws restricting modern art and literature from entering the United States. He convinced the United States Congress to overturn the 1909 Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, which retained the duty on foreign works of art less than 20 years old, discouraging Americans from collecting modern European art. Quinn opened the Armory Show exhibition with the words:"... it was time the American people had an opportunity to see and judge for themselves concerning the work of the Europeans who are creating a new art."

The Armory Show displayed some 1,300 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over 300 avant-garde European and American artists. Impressionist, Fauvist, and Cubist works were represented. The publicity that stormed the show had been well sought, with the publication of half-tone postcards of 57 works, including the Duchamp nude that would become its most infamous. News reports and reviews were filled with accusations of quackery, insanity, immorality, and anarchy, as well as parodies, caricatures, doggerels, and mock exhibitions. Some responded with laughter, as the artist John French Sloan seemed to not take the exhibition seriously in his published cartoon, "A slight attack of third brought on by excessive study of the much-talked of cubist pictures in the International Exhibition at New York". About the modern works, former President Theodore Roosevelt declared, "That's not art!" The civil authorities did not, however, close down or otherwise interfere with the show.

Among the scandalously radical works of art, pride of place goes to Marcel Duchamp's cubist/futurist style Nude Descending a Staircase, painted the year before, in which he expressed motion with successive superimposed images, as in motion pictures. Julian Street, an art critic, wrote that the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory" (this quote is also attributed to Joel Spingarn ), and cartoonists satirized the piece. Gutzon Borglum, one of the early organizers of the show who for a variety of reasons withdrew both his organizational prowess and his work, labeled this piece A staircase descending a nude, while J. F. Griswold, a writer for the New York Evening Sun, entitled it The rude descending a staircase (Rush hour in the subway). The painting was purchased from the Armory Show by Frederic C. Torrey of San Francisco.

The purchase of Paul Cézanne's Hill of the Poor (View of the Domaine Saint-Joseph) by the Metropolitan Museum of Art signaled an integration of modernism into the established New York museums, but among the younger artists represented, Cézanne was already an established master.

Duchamp's brother, who went by the "nom de guerre" Jacques Villon, also exhibited, sold all his Cubist drypoint etchings, and struck a sympathetic chord with New York collectors who supported him in the following decades.

The exhibition went on to show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston, where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed.

While in Chicago, the exhibition created a scandal that reached the governor's office. Several articles in the press recounted the issue. In one newspaper the headline read: Cubist Art Will be Investigated; Illinois Legislative Investigators to Probe the Moral Tone of the Much Touted Art:

"Chicago, April 2: Charges that the international exhibition of cubist and futurist pictures, now being displayed here at the art institute, contains many indecent canvasses and sculptures will be investigated at once by the Illinois legislature white slave commission. A visit of an investigator to the show and his report on the pictures caused Lieutenant Governor Barratt O'Hara to order an immediate examination of the entire exhibition. Mr. O'Hara sent the investigator to look over the pictures after he had received many complaints of the character of the show. 'We will not condemn the international exhibit without an impartial investigation,' said the lieutenant governor today. 'I have received many complaints, however, and we owe it to the public that the subject be looked into thoroughly.' The investigator reported that a number of the pictures were 'immoral and suggestive.' Senators Woodward and Beall of the commission will visit the exhibition today."

Floor plan
The following shows the content of each gallery:
 * Gallery A: American Sculpture and Decorative Art
 * Gallery B: American Paintings and Sculpture
 * Gallery C, D, E, F: American Paintings
 * Gallery G: English, Irish and German Paintings and Drawings
 * Gallery H, I: French Painting and Sculpture
 * Gallery J: French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings
 * Gallery K: French and American Water Colors, Drawings, etc.
 * Gallery L: American Water Colors, Drawings, etc.
 * Gallery M: American Paintings
 * Gallery N: American Paintings and Sculpture
 * Gallery O: French Paintings
 * Gallery P: French, English, Dutch and American Paintings
 * Gallery Q: French Paintings
 * Gallery R: French, English and Swiss Paintings

Legacy
The original exhibition was an overwhelming success. There have been several exhibitions that were celebrations of its legacy throughout the 20th century.

In 1944 the Cincinnati Art Museum mounted a smaller version, in 1958 Amherst College held an exhibition of 62 works, 41 of which were in the original show, and in 1963 the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York, organized the "1913 Armory Show 50th Anniversary Exhibition" sponsored by the Henry Street Settlement in New York, which included more than 300 works.

Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was officially launched by the engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman when they collaborated in 1966 and together organized 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, a series of performance art presentations that united artists and engineers. Ten artists worked with more than 30 engineers to produce art performances incorporating new technology. The performances were held in the 69th Regiment Armory, as an homage to the original and historical 1913 Armory show.

In February 2009, the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) presented its 21st annual Art Show to benefit the Henry Street Settlement, at the Seventh Regiment Armory, located between 66th and 67th Streets and Park and Lexington Avenues in New York City. The exhibition began as a historical homage to the original 1913 Armory Show.

Starting with a small exhibition in 1994, by 2001 The Armory Show, now held at the Javits Center, evolved into a "hugely entertaining" (The New York Times) annual contemporary arts festival with a strong commercial bent.

Commemorating the centennial
Many exhibitions in 2013 celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Armory Show, as well as a number of publications, virtual exhibitions, and programs. The first exhibition, "The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913," opened at the Montclair Art Museum on February 17, 2013, a hundred years to the day from the original. The second exhibition was organized by the New-York Historical Society and titled "The Armory Show at 100," taking place from October 18, 2013, through February 23, 2014. The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, which lent dozens of historic documents to both the New York Historical Society and Montclair for the exhibitions, created an online timeline of events, 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, to showcase the records and documents created by the show's organizers.

Showing contemporary work, a third exhibition, The Fountain Art Fair, was held at the 69th Regiment Armory itself during the 100th anniversary during March 8–10, 2013. The ethos of Fountain Art Fair was inspired by Duchamp's famous "Fountain" which was the symbol of the Fair. The Art Institute of Chicago, which was the only museum to host the 1913 Armory Show, presented works February 20 – May 12, 2013, the items drawn from the museum's modern collection that were displayed in the original 1913 exhibition. The DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Illinois presented For and Against Modern Art: The Armory Show +100, from April 4 to June 16, 2013. The International Print Center in New York held an exhibition, "1913 Armory Show Revisited: the Artists and their Prints," of prints from the show or by artists whose work in other media was included.

In addition, the Greenwich Historical Society presented The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Before and After the Armory Show, from October 9, 2013, through January 12, 2014. The show focused on the effects of the Armory Show on the Cos Cob Art Colony, and highlighted the involvement of artists such as Elmer Livingston MacRae and Henry Fitch Taylor in producing the show.

American filmmaker Michael Maglaras produced a documentary film about the Armory Show entitled, The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show. The film premiered on September 26, 2013, at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut.

List of artists
Below is a partial list of the artists in the show. These artists are all listed in the 50th anniversary catalog as having exhibited in the original 1913 Armory show.

 * Robert Ingersoll Aitken
 * Alexander Archipenko
 * George Grey Barnard
 * Chester Beach
 * Gifford Beal
 * Maurice Becker
 * George Bellows
 * Joseph Bernard
 * Guy Pène du Bois
 * Oscar Bluemner
 * Hanns Bolz
 * Pierre Bonnard
 * Solon Borglum
 * Antoine Bourdelle
 * Constantin Brâncuși
 * Georges Braque
 * Bessie Marsh Brewer
 * Patrick Henry Bruce
 * Paul Burlin
 * Theodore Earl Butler
 * Charles Camoin
 * Arthur Carles
 * Mary Cassatt
 * Oscar Cesare
 * Paul Cézanne
 * Robert Winthrop Chanler
 * Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
 * John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke
 * Nessa Cohen
 * Camille Corot
 * Kate Cory
 * Gustave Courbet
 * Henri-Edmond Cross
 * Leon Dabo
 * Andrew Dasburg
 * Honoré Daumier
 * Jo Davidson
 * Arthur B. Davies (President)
 * Stuart Davis
 * Edgar Degas
 * Eugène Delacroix
 * Robert Delaunay
 * Maurice Denis
 * André Derain
 * Katherine Sophie Dreier
 * Marcel Duchamp
 * Georges Dufrénoy
 * Raoul Dufy
 * Jacob Epstein
 * Mary Foote
 * Roger de La Fresnaye
 * Othon Friesz
 * Paul Gauguin
 * William Glackens
 * Albert Gleizes
 * Vincent van Gogh
 * Francisco Goya
 * Marsden Hartley
 * Childe Hassam
 * Robert Henri
 * Edward Hopper
 * Ferdinand Hodler
 * Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
 * James Dickson Innes
 * Augustus John
 * Gwen John
 * Wassily Kandinsky
 * Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
 * Leon Kroll
 * Walt Kuhn (Founder)
 * Gaston Lachaise
 * Marie Laurencin
 * Ernest Lawson
 * Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
 * Arthur Lee
 * Fernand Léger
 * Wilhelm Lehmbruck
 * Jonas Lie
 * Amy Londoner
 * George Luks
 * Aristide Maillol
 * Édouard Manet
 * Henri Manguin
 * Edward Middleton Manigault
 * John Marin
 * Albert Marquet
 * Henri Matisse
 * Alfred Henry Maurer
 * Kenneth Hayes Miller
 * David Milne
 * Claude Monet
 * Adolphe Monticelli
 * Edvard Munch
 * Ethel Myers
 * Jerome Myers (Founder)
 * Elie Nadelman
 * Olga Oppenheimer
 * Walter Pach
 * Jules Pascin
 * Francis Picabia
 * Pablo Picasso
 * Camille Pissarro
 * Maurice Prendergast
 * Odilon Redon
 * Pierre-Auguste Renoir
 * Boardman Robinson
 * Theodore Robinson
 * Auguste Rodin
 * Georges Rouault
 * Henri Rousseau
 * Morgan Russell
 * Albert Pinkham Ryder
 * André Dunoyer de Segonzac
 * Georges Seurat
 * Charles Sheeler
 * Walter Sickert
 * Paul Signac
 * Alfred Sisley
 * John Sloan
 * Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
 * Joseph Stella
 * Felix E. Tobeen
 * John Henry Twachtman
 * Félix Vallotton
 * Raymond Duchamp-Villon
 * Jacques Villon
 * Maurice de Vlaminck
 * Bessie Potter Vonnoh
 * Édouard Vuillard
 * Abraham Walkowitz
 * J. Alden Weir
 * James Abbott McNeill Whistler
 * Enid Yandell
 * Jack B. Yeats
 * Mahonri Young
 * Marguerite Zorach
 * William Zorach

List of women artists
Women artists in the Armory Show includes those from the United States and from Europe. Approximately a fifth of the artists showing at the armory were women, many of whom have since been neglected.

La Maison Cubiste (Cubist House)
At the 1912 Salon d'Automne an architectural installation was exhibited that quickly became known as Maison Cubiste (Cubist House), signed Raymond Duchamp-Villon and André Mare along with a group of collaborators. Metzinger and Gleizes in Du "Cubisme", written during the assemblage of the "Maison Cubiste", wrote about the autonomous nature of art, stressing the point that decorative considerations should not govern the spirit of art. Decorative work, to them, was the "antithesis of the picture". "The true picture" wrote Metzinger and Gleizes, "bears its raison d'être within itself. It can be moved from a church to a drawing-room, from a museum to a study. Essentially independent, necessarily complete, it need not immediately satisfy the mind: on the contrary, it should lead it, little by little, towards the fictitious depths in which the coordinative light resides. It does not harmonize with this or that ensemble; it harmonizes with things in general, with the universe: it is an organism...". "Mare's ensembles were accepted as frames for Cubist works because they allowed paintings and sculptures their independence", writes Christopher Green, "creating a play of contrasts, hence the involvement not only of Gleizes and Metzinger themselves, but of Marie Laurencin, the Duchamp brothers (Raymond Duchamp-Villon designed the facade) and Mare's old friends Léger and Roger La Fresnaye". La Maison Cubiste was a fully furnished house, with a staircase, wrought iron banisters, a living room—the Salon Bourgeois, where paintings by Marcel Duchamp, Metzinger (Woman with a Fan), Gleizes, Laurencin and Léger were hung—and a bedroom. It was an example of L'art décoratif, a home within which Cubist art could be displayed in the comfort and style of modern, bourgeois life. Spectators at the Salon d'Automne passed through the full-scale 10-by-3-meter plaster model of the ground floor of the facade, designed by Duchamp-Villon. This architectural installation was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York, Chicago and Boston, listed in the catalogue of the New York exhibit as Raymond Duchamp-Villon, number 609, and entitled "Facade architectural, plaster" (Façade architecturale).

1913 Armory Show

 * The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution, The New-York Historical Society
 * Smithsonian, Archives of American Art, Walt Kuhn scrapbook of press clippings documenting the Armory Show, vol. 2, 1913. Armory Show catalogue (illustrated) from pages 159 through 236
 * Catalogue of international exhibition of modern art Association of American Painters and Sculptors. Published 1913 by the Association in New York
 * 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
 * Virtual re-creation of the Armory Show from the American Studies Programs at the University of Virginia
 * Works of art exhibited at the Armory Show of the association of American Painters and Sculptors, New York, Library of Congress
 * The Armory Show at 100: Armory Show 1913 Complete List, The New-York Historical Society

Armory shows after 1913

 * The "New" Armory Show
 * Artkrush.com feature on the 2006 Armory Show (March, 2006)
 * 2010 Armory Show
 * Swann Galleries – The Armory Show at 100 – Exhibition through November 5, 2013
 * Armory Show 2014: List of exhibiting galleries

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Armory Show


text:
Recruit

Recruit can refer to:

Military

 * Military recruitment
 * Recruit training, in the military
 * Rekrut (English: Recruit), a military recruit or low rank in German-speaking countries
 * Seaman recruit

Books

 * Le Réquisitionnaire (English "The Conscript" or more commonly "The Recruit"), a short story by Honoré de Balzac published in 1831
 * The Recruit (novel), the first book of the children's CHERUB series

Film and TV

 * Recruits (TV series), a 2009 Australian TV series about the New South Wales Police Force
 * Recruits: Paramedics, a 2011 Australian factual television program about New South Wales Paramedics
 * The Recruit, a 2003 film starring Al Pacino and Colin Farrell
 * The Recruit (Australian TV series), a 2014–2016 Australian rules football reality television series
 * The Recruit (American TV series), a 2022 American spy-adventure television series released by Netflix
 * "The Recruit" (Dad's Army), an episode of the 1973 British TV series Dad's Army

Brands and enterprises

 * Recruit (company), a Japanese advertising, publishing, and human resources company

Ships

 * HMS Recruit, various ships of Britain's Royal Navy
 * USS Recruit, various ships of the U.S. Navy

title: Recruit


text:
Ohio Impromptu

Ohio Impromptu is a "playlet" by Samuel Beckett.

Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio, in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and struggled with the piece for nine months before it was ready. It was first performed on 9 May 1981 at the Stadium II Theater; Alan Schneider directed with David Warrilow as "Reader" and Rand Mitchell as "Listener".

"It is the first Beckett play to present a Doppelgänger on stage, another Beckett pair, but this time seen as mirror images; it belongs to Beckett’s ghost period, where phantoms that echo the haunting quality of memory and nostalgia in his work are seen or described on stage."

Characters and action
Two old men are sitting at right angles to each other beside a rectangular table. They are "[a]s alike in appearance as possible" both wearing long black coats and possessing long white hair. The table is white as are the chairs. The character known as "Listener" is facing the audience but his head is bowed and his face hidden. The other character, "Reader’s" posture is similar the only difference being that he has a book in front of him open at the last pages. A single "[b]lack wide-brimmed hat" is sitting on the table. The characters "could have been borrowed from Rembrandt" or from Gerard ter Borch's Four Spanish Monks although no specific painting was suggested by Beckett himself as an inspiration. "Rubin’s figure-ground experiments" have also been suggested.

As soon as Reader starts to read Listener knocks on the table with his left hand at which point Reader pauses, repeats the last full sentence and then waits for a further knock on the table before recommencing. This continues throughout the entire reading and is reminiscent of "Krapp’s earlier relishing in selected passages from his tapes." "At one point the Listener stops the Reader from turning back to an earlier page to which the text refers, and at another the Reader pauses at a seemingly ungrammatical structure in the text, says, ‘Yes’—his one ‘impromptu’ remark—and re-reads it. Other than that one word he only vocalises exactly what is printed on the page.

Listener makes Reader repeat the last sentence of his tale and then the book is closed. "Nothing is left to tell" and yet Listener insists on knocking one last time but there is nothing more to read. The two look at each other without blinking until the light fades.

The story
The narrative, written in the past tense, tells a story of someone, possibly Listener himself, who in a “last attempt to obtain relief” following the loss of a loved one, moves away to the Isle of Swans, a place where they never had been together. In doing this he completely disregards their warning, when they appeared to him in a dream: “Stay where we were so long alone together, my shade will comfort you.”

He soon realises that he has made “a terrible mistake. Familiar surroundings could have soothed and ‘sedated’ him through their long association with his loved one, but unfamiliar surroundings accentuate his total sense of deprivation. In his bereaved state, everything conspires to remind him of what he has lost.” For whatever reason he is unable to go back, to undo what he had done. He is plagued by night terrors, something he had suffered from in the past, so far back in fact it was “as if [they had] never been.” As a result, he finds he can’t sleep.

However, one night (which could just as easily have been "Once upon a time"), as he is sitting with his head in his hands and trembling all over, a man appears from nowhere. He explains that he has been sent by the man’s loved one to bring him comfort, at which point he pulls “a worn volume from the pocket of his long black coat and [reads from it] till dawn”, after which he vanishes without another word. We learn that it is a “sad tale”, but no more. This continues night after night: the man appears “unheralded” and “without preamble” begins to read, and disappears at dawn “without a word”.

Eventually, the “loved one” determines that this has gone on long enough. After completing his reading one last time, the man remains and explains that this will be his final appearance. He has been told that his comforting is no longer needed and he is no longer empowered to return even if he wanted to. For a time the two, who through the many nights of readings had grown “to be as one”, sit on in silence buried in “profounds of mind … as though turned to stone”.

David Warrilow recalls Beckett’s advice to him when he undertook the role: “Now, the most useful intention that Beckett gave me early on in the Ohio Impromptu experience was to treat it like a bedtime story and let it be soothing.”

Biographical insights
“Beckett served for a time as Joyce’s amanuensis … the two men used to walk together on the Isle of Swans during the thirties and … Joyce used to wear a Latin Quarter hat.” Beckett confirmed these details with reference to the piece during a dinner conversation with James Knowlson. “Of course,” he said. Knowlson then mentioned that he had heard people refer to the “dear face” “as if it too were the face of Joyce”. Knowlson believed it was actually a woman and Beckett concurred: “It’s Suzanne … I’ve imagined her dead so many times. I’ve even imagined myself trudging out to her grave.” “When he wrote Ohio Impromptu [his wife] was eighty years old [and although for some time they lived quite separate lives they] had nonetheless remained a couple for over forty years” and “the thought of Suzanne dying was intolerable to him.”

The character in the story is plagued by night terrors and insomnia, as was Beckett. All his life he was troubled by nightmares. “His insomnia was probably inherited, from his mother, who suffered from the same … complaint. In the 1930s Beckett also began to experience panic attacks. “Chief among these was a feeling of suffocation, which often came on him in his room as night was falling.

The title of the play deserves some comment: Ohio Impromptu is a “straightforwardly descriptive [title], marking occasion and genre – impromptus à la Molière and Giraudoux (which were metatheatrical or self-reflexive exercises) – or more like the intricate little solo pieces Schubert, Chopin and Schumann called impromptus. “In promising an impromptu – a performance without preparation – the title of the play subverts its own promise when followed by a text which allows no extemporaneous composition, no improvisation on the part of the actors.

"‘Ohio’ is [also] the answer of an American children's riddle which goes "What is high in the middle and round at the ends?" or "What is high in the middle and nothing at the ends?" ... This gives the central theme of Beckett's play: two voids or 'nothings' - birth and death - and between the high of life."

Interpretation
Critics differ in their interpretations of who or what Reader is. Whether an apparition, Listener’s alter ego or an alternate aspect of his mind the nightly 'reading' is clearly an essential part of Listener’s healing process. Beckett theatre specialist Anna McMullan claims that "[i]n both Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu the speaking of the text becomes a rite of passage which enacts a transformation – from loss to comfort, from life to death and from speech to silence." In Rockaby, the woman has stayed on in the family home after her mother’s death; Listener has elected to run away.

"As with Company, the author again returns to a theme he has portrayed many times, that loneliness and nostalgia are too personal, after a certain age, to be shared with any being other than oneself." "The image of the river (the Seine) with its two arms flowing into one another after they have divided to flow around the island… is a clue to the meaning of the play. For at its emotional centre lies sadness, loss and solitude, contrasted with a memory of togetherness." So why does Listener move to the Isle of Swans rather than away? The location may have had a certain meaning for Beckett-the-person but Beckett-the-writer chose it more for its geographical features, the two rivers merging into one and also the fact that a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty stands on the isle representing the literal New World that Ohio is part of and the metaphorical new world that Listener moves to.

The arrangement of figures actually "resembles the figures used in the psychological experiments early [in the 20th] century to establish the principle of closure." The divided self is a common means of approach to Beckettian texts and has been applied to Krapp’s Last Tape, Footfalls, That Time and even Waiting for Godot.

Beckett may have had his own wife in mind when he wrote the play but he goes to some pains never to specify the name or gender of the loved one. This gives the text extra depth. The man could be grieving for a father or, more likely bearing in mind Beckett’s other works, his mother. Also there is nothing to prevent the loved one being a male partner and homoerotic readings of Beckett’s work are not uncommon.

As regards Reader, Gontarski himself has argued that what we are seeing is effectively a dramatisation of "the elemental creative process... suggested in That Time, where the protagonist of narrative A would hide as a youth, 'making up talk breaking up two or more talking to himself being together that way'."

Others suggest that Reader is the "shade", some kind of spectral emissary, despatched by Listener’s dead lover to help him through the grieving process. In an early draft of the play Beckett had focussed "on a ghost returning from the Underworld to speak at... a conference"; the only vestige of that remaining is the pun on "White nights" - Whitenights, Reading is where a great many of his manuscripts are now preserved and the address of the Beckett International Foundation.

"The narrative echoes (but does not replicate or anticipate) the stag(ed) image." "In the text we are told that the figures remain: 'Buried in who knows what profounds of mind'. On stage, however, they raise their heads to meet each other’s eyes in meaningful contemplation." It is therefore equally plausible that the two men on stage are not the same as the two men in the story. "Like an author, Listener occasionally calls for the repeat of a phrase, but Reader has his own agency, repeating a phrase unbidden at least once." One factor that suggests this might not be the case is the fact that there is only one hat between the two of them.

After the story has been read and the book closed Listener knocks once more, the signal to begin again from where Reader had left off. "What do words say when there is nothing left to tell" however? Beckett was obsessed by a desire to create what he called a "literature of the unword", and the play represents another example of this effort.

Beckett on film
In Charles Sturridge's 2002 film adaptation of Ohio Impromptu for the Beckett on Film project, modern cinematic techniques allowed Reader and Listener to both be played by the same actor (Jeremy Irons), literally fulfilling Beckett's instruction that the two characters should be "as alike in appearance as possible" and following the interpretation that they are really elements in the one personality. In the text, the pair only look directly at each other at the very end. In this production, however, they communicate visually throughout.

Anna McMullan criticized this filmic interpretation of Ohio Impromptu as being "led once again by a psychologized approach to performance [since] Jeremy Irons plays both parts and the ‘ghost’ fades away at dawn".

Online references

 * Beckett's dying remains: The Process of Playwriting in the Ohio Impromptu Manuscripts
 * Dramatic Texts of Samuel Beckett

title: Ohio Impromptu


text:
Eastern screech owl

The eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) or eastern screech-owl, is a small owl that is relatively common in Eastern North America, from Mexico to Canada. This species resides in most types of woodland habitats across its range, and is relatively adaptable to urban and developed areas compared to other owls. Although it often lives in close proximity to humans, the eastern screech owl frequently avoids detection due to its strictly nocturnal habits.

Taxonomy
The eastern screech owl was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other owls in the genus Strix and coined the binomial name Strix asio. Linnaeus based his account on the "little owl" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The specific epithet is the Latin word for a type of eared owl. The eastern screech owl is now one of 22 screech owls placed in the genus Megascops that was introduced in 1848 by the German naturalist Johann Kaup.

Five subspecies are typically recognised for the eastern screech owl, but the taxonomy in the species is considered "muddled". Much of the variation may be considered clinal, as predictably, the size tends to decrease from north to south and much of the color variation is explainable by adaptation to habitat.

 * M. a. asio (Linnaeus, 1758) includes previously described races no longer considered valid such as M. a. carolinensis, M. a. naevius and M. a. striatus. It is resident from eastern Minnesota to southwestern Quebec and southern New Hampshire south to Missouri, Tennessee, and northern South Carolina. Dorsal color is cold gray; the red morph is common (about 39% of overall population). The nominate's markings are coarse and sparse and its toes are densely feathered. Its primary song has a terminal, tremulous whinny. This is a medium-to-large race, measuring 14 to 18 cm in wing chord length. The owls of southern Ontario are on the larger end of the scale, of similar size to the relatively big owls of Colorado and Wyoming.
 * M. a. maxwelliae (Ridgway, 1877). Includes M. a. swenki. Resident from central Montana, southeastern Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba south to western Kansas. This race is similar to M. a. asio but dorsal color tends to be a paler gray, the ventrum being whiter and less heavily marked and red morphs tending to paler and rarer (~7% of population ). With a wing chord length of 15 to 18 cm, this is the largest race in average linear measurements. This subspecies was named in honor of Martha Maxwell by ornithologist Robert Ridgway of the Smithsonian Institution.
 * M. a. hasbroucki (Ridgway, 1914). Replacement name for the formerly described M. a. trichopsis. This subspecies is a resident from Oklahoma panhandle and southern Kansas south to Edwards Plateau of central Texas. This subspecies is also similar to M. a. asio but the dorsal color is buffy gray, the red morph being rare (~5% of population), and markings coarse and dense. This race averages at a similar size as the first two, at 14 to 18 cm in wing chord length.
 * M. a. mccallii (Cassin, 1854) includes previously described races such as M. a. enano and M. a. semplei. Resident from southern Texas (Big Bend to lower Rio Grande Valley) and northwestern Chihuahua and northern Coahuila southeast to eastern San Luis Potosí, this race is similar to M. a. hasbroucki, but its markings are fine and dense so the dorsum looks heavily mottled, with red morphs being rare (apparently entirely absent in South Texas). Its body size is smaller to the northern races, with a wing chord length of 13 to 17 cm. Unlike other subspecies, the primary song of M. a. mccallii lacks a terminal whinny.
 * M. a. floridanus (Ridgway, 1873) is resident in Florida and southern Georgia west through Gulf Coast states to western Louisiana and north in the Mississippi River valley to southeastern Arkansas. This race's dorsal color is often rusty-brown (red morph equally common), with fine and dense markings. As described above, this subspecies may occur in a true "brown morph". It is the smallest race of eastern screech owl, ranging in wing chord length from 13 to 16 cm.

Description
Adults range from 16 to 25 cm in length and weigh 121 - 244 g. Among the differently sized races, length can average from 19.5 to 23.8 cm. The wingspan can range from 46 to 61 cm. In Ohio, male owls average 166 g and females 194 g while in central Texas, they average 157 g and 185 g, respectively. They have either rusty or dark gray intricately patterned plumage with streaking on the underparts. Midsized by screech-owl standards, these birds are stocky, short-tailed (tail averages from 6.6 to 8.6 cm in length) and broad-winged (wing chord averages from 14.5 to 17 cm in length) as is typical of the genus. They have a large, round head with prominent ear tufts, yellow eyes, and a yellowish beak, which measures on average 1.45 cm in length. The feet are relatively large and powerful compared to more southern screech owls and are typically feathered down to the toes, although the southernmost populations only have remnant bristles rather than full feathering on the legs and feet. The eastern screech owl (and its western counterpart) are actually some of the heaviest screech owls; the largest tropical screech owls do not exceed them in average or maximal weight, but (due to the eastern screech owls' relatively short tails) they are surpassed in length by Balsas (M. seductus), long-tufted (M. sanctaecatarinae), white-throated (M. albogularis), and rufescent owls (M. seductus), in roughly increasing order. Two color variations are referred to as "red or rufous morphs" and "gray morphs" by bird watchers and ornithologists. Rusty birds are more common in the southern parts of the range; pairings of the two color variants do occur. While the gray morph provides remarkably effective camouflage amongst the bark of hardwood trees, red morphs may find security in certain pine trees and the colorful leaves of changing deciduous trees. The highest percentage of red morphs is known from Tennessee (79% of population) and Illinois (78% of population). A rarer "brown morph" is known, recorded exclusively in the south (i.e. Florida), which may be the occasional product of hybridation between the morphs. In Florida, brown morphs are typically reported in the more humid portions of the state, whereas they appear to be generally absent in the northern and northwestern parts of the state. A paler gray variation (sometimes bordering on a washed-out, whitish look) also exists in western Canada and the north-central United States.

Confusion with other species
In the closely related western screech owl (Megascops kennicottii), no color morphs are known; all owls of the western species are gray. Besides coloration, the western screech owl is of almost exactly the same general appearance and size as the eastern. The only reliable distinguishing feature is the bill color, which is considerably darker (often a black-gray) in the western and olive-yellow in the eastern; their voices also differ. The eastern and western screech owls overlap in the range in the Rio Grande valley at the Texas–Mexico border and the riparian woods of the Cimarron tributary of the Arkansas River on the edge of southern Great Plains. Other somewhat similar species that may abut the eastern screech owl's range in its western and southernmost distribution, like the Middle American screech owl (Megascops guatemalae; formerly called "vermiculated screech owl"), whiskered screech owl (Megascops trichopsis), and the flammulated owl (Psiloscops flammeolus), are distinguished by their increasingly smaller body and foot size, different streaking pattern on breast (bolder on the whiskered, weaker on the others), different bare part coloration, and distinctive voices. Through much of the eastern United States, eastern screech owls are essentially physically unmistakable, because other owls with ear tufts are much larger and differently colored and the only other small owl, the northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadius) is even smaller, with no ear tufts, a more defined facial disc, and browner overall color.

Plumage polymorphism
Eastern screech owls exhibit a similar polymorphism as tawny owls, whose plumage ranges from rufous to gray. The inheritance of morph in owls is likely complex, but rufous plumage may be controlled by a dominant allele and gray plumage alleles are recessive. There are latitudinal clines in screech owl polymorphism, with northern latitudes containing mostly gray individuals and southern latitudes containing primarily rufous individuals. This cline may be driven by higher metabolic rates in rufous individuals compared to gray individuals. Evidence of higher metabolic rates was shown by a higher proportion of gray morphs in the rural areas surrounding Waco, TX compared to the warmer suburban areas. Rufous screech owls also had higher mortality during cold winters.

Distribution and habitat
Eastern screech owls inhabit open mixed woodlands, deciduous forests, parklands, wooded suburban areas, riparian woods along streams and wetlands (especially in drier areas), mature orchards, and woodlands near marshes, meadows, and fields. They try to avoid areas known to have regular activity of larger owls, especially great horned owls (Bubo virginianus). Their ability to live in heavily developed areas outranks even the great horned and certainly the barred owl (Strix varia); screech owls also are considerably more successful in the face of urbanization than barn owls (Tyto alba) following the conversion of what was once farmland. Due to the introduction of open woodland and cultivated strips in the Great Plains, the range of eastern screech owls there has expanded. Eastern screech owls have been reported living and nesting in spots such as along the border of a busy highway and on the top of a street light in the middle of a busy town square. They often nest in trees in neighborhoods and urban yards inhabited by humans. In such urban environments, they often meet their dietary needs via introduced species that live close to humans such as house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and house mice (Mus musculus). They also consume anole lizards and large insects such as cicadas. They occupy the greatest range of habitats of any owl east of the Rockies. Eastern screech owls roost mainly in natural cavities in large trees, including cavities open to the sky during dry weather. In suburban and rural areas, they may roost in manmade locations such as behind loose boards on buildings, in boxcars, or on water tanks. They also roost in dense foliage of trees, usually on a branch next to the trunk, or in dense, scrubby brush. The distribution of the species is largely concurrent with the distribution of eastern deciduous woodlands, probably discontinuing at the Rocky Mountains in the west and in northern Mexico in the south due to the occupation of similar niches by other screech owls and discontinuing at the start of true boreal forest because of the occupation of a similar niche by other small owls (especially boreal owls (Aegolius funereus). Eastern screech owls may be found from sea level up to 1400 m in elevation in the eastern Rocky Mountains and up to 1500 m in the eastern Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, although their altitudinal limits in the Appalachian Mountains, near the heart of their distribution, is not currently known.

Behavior
Eastern screech owls are strictly nocturnal, roosting during the day in cavities or next to tree trunks. They are quite common, and can often be found in residential areas. However, due to their small size and camouflage, they are much more frequently heard than actually seen. These owls are frequently heard calling at night, especially during their spring breeding season. Despite their name, this owl does not truly screech. The eastern screech owl's call is a tremolo with a descending, whinny-like quality, like that of a miniature horse. They also produce a monotone purring trill lasting 3–5 seconds. Their voices are unmistakable and follow a noticeably different phrasing than that of the western screech owl. The lugubrious nature of the eastern screech owl's call has warranted description such as, "A most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolation of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and delights of the supernal love in the infernal groves, Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n!.

Breeding
Their breeding habitat is deciduous or mixed woods in eastern North America. Usually solitary, they nest in a tree cavity, either natural or excavated by a woodpecker. Holes must have a 7 to 20 cm entrance to accommodate this owl. Usually, they fit only in the holes excavated by northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) or pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus), as apparently the midsized red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinensis) make holes that are not large enough to accommodate them. Orchards, which often have trees with crevices and holes, as well as meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), a dietary favorite, are often preferred nesting habitats. Eastern screech owls also use nesting boxes erected by humans. Although some people put up nest boxes meant for screech owls, the owls also take over nest boxes meant for others, such as those for wood ducks (Aix sponsa), houses erected for purple martins (Progne subis), and dovecotes put up for rock doves (Columba livia), occasionally killing and consuming at least the latter two in the process of taking over the nest box. A 9-year study comparing the breeding success of eastern screech owls nesting in natural cavities and nesting in nest boxes showed that the fledging rate was essentially the same, although in some years, up to 10% more success occurred in the natural cavities. Depending on the origins of the hole being used, eastern screech owl nests have been recorded from 1.5 to 25 m off the ground. Like all owls, these birds do not actually build a nest; instead, females lay their eggs directly on the bare floor of the nest hole or on the layer of fur and feathers left over from previous meals that line the bottom of its den. Breeding pairs often return to the same nest year after year.

This species commences egg laying on average about two months after great horned owls, but about two weeks before American kestrels (Falco sparveius) and almost throughout the range lays its first egg at some point in April. Eggs are laid at two-day intervals and incubation begins after laying of the first egg. Eggs vary in size in synch with their ultimate body size, ranging from an average of 36.3 x in the Northern Rockies to 33.9 x in south Texas. From one to six eggs have been recorded per clutch, with an average of 4.4 in Ohio, 3.0 in Florida, and 4.56 in the north-central United States. The incubation period is about 26 days, and the young reach the fledging stage at about 31 days old. Females do most of the incubating and brooding, but males also occasionally take shifts. As is the typical division of labor in owls, the male provides most of the food while the female primarily broods the young, and they stockpile food during the early stages of nesting, although the male tends to work hard nightly because many nestlings often appear to live almost entirely on freshly caught insects and invertebrates. The male's smaller size make it superior in its nimbleness, which allows it to catch insects and other swift prey. Eastern screech owls are single-brooded, but may renest if the first clutch is lost, especially towards the southern end of its range. When the young are small, the female tears the food apart for them. The female, with her larger size and harder strike, takes on the duty of defending the nest from potential threats, and even humans may be aggressively attacked, sometimes resulting in them drawing blood from the head and shoulders of human passers-by.

Feeding habits
Like most predators, eastern screech owls are opportunistic hunters. Due to the ferocity and versatility of their hunting style, early authors nicknamed eastern screech owls "feathered wildcats". In terms of ecological niche, they have no easy ecological equivalent in Europe, perhaps the closest being the little owl (Athene noctua), the similar looking Eurasian scops owl (Otus scops) being smaller and weaker and the long-eared owl (Asio otus) more fully dependent on rodents. The success of eastern screech (and western screech) owls in North America may be the reason long-eared owls are much more restricted to limited northern forest habitat in North America than they are in Europe. Eastern screech owls hunt from dusk to dawn, with most hunting being done during the first four hours of darkness. A combination of sharp hearing and vision is used for prey location. These owls hunt mainly from perches, dropping down onto prey. Occasionally, they also hunt by scanning through the treetops in brief flights or hover to catch prey. This owl mainly hunts in open woodlands, along the edges of open fields or wetlands, or makes short forays into open fields. When prey is spotted, the owl dives quickly and seizes it in its talons. Small prey usually is swallowed whole on the spot, while larger prey is carried in the bill to a perch and then torn into pieces. An eastern screech owl tends to frequent areas in its home range where it hunted successfully on previous nights. The eastern screech owl's sense of hearing is so acute, it can even locate mammals under heavy vegetation or snow. The bird's ears (as opposed to its ear tufts) are placed asymmetrically on its head, enabling it to use the differences between each ear's perception of sound to home in on prey. Additionally, the feathers the eastern screech owl uses to fly are serrated at their tips. This muffles the noise the bird makes when it flaps its wings, enabling it to sneak up on prey quietly. Both the specialized ear placement and wing feathers are a feature shared by most living owl species to aid them in hunting in darkness.

During the breeding season, large insects are favored in their diet, with invertebrates often composing more than half of the owls' diet. Some regularly eaten insects include beetles, moths, crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, and cicadas, although they likely consume any commonly available flying insect. Also taken are crayfish, snails, spiders, earthworms, scorpions, leeches, millipedes, and centipedes. Small mammals, ranging in size from shrews to young rabbits (Sylvilagus ssp.), are regular prey and almost always become the owl's primary food during winter. Small rodents such as microtine rodents and mice account for about 67% of mammals taken, although rodents of a similar weight to the owl, such as rats and squirrels, especially the red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), are also taken. Jumping mice (Zapus ssp.), chipmunks, moles, and bats (especially the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) may be taken occasionally. Small birds such as chickadees (Poecile ssp.), swallows, sparrows, finches, flycatchers, and warblers are the most common avian prey, and such species are normally caught directly from their nocturnal perches or during nocturnal migration. In Ohio, the most commonly reported avian prey species, and most commonly stored food items behind meadow voles, were yellow-rumped warblers (Setophaga coronata) and white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichus albicollis). Abundant midsized avian or largish passerine prey are also not uncommon foods, such as mourning doves (Zenaida macroura), downy woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens), northern flickers, blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata), American robins (Turdus migratorius), European starling (Sturnus vulgaris), red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), and common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula). However, larger avian prey are sometimes caught, including northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and American woodcocks (Scolopax minor) and even feral pigeons and ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), most likely young or fledgling aged birds, but all of which are likely to be heavier than the screech owls themselves. All told, more than 100 species of bird have been hunted by eastern screech owls. Irregularly, small fish, small snakes (i.e. Heterodon ssp.), lizards, baby soft-shelled turtles (Apalone ssp.), small frogs such as tree frogs and northern leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens), toads, newts, and salamanders are also preyed upon. They have even been observed hunting for fish at fishing holes made by people or cracks in ice at bodies of water during winter. The most commonly reported fish prey in Ohio were American gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum) and green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus). Brown bullheads (Ameiurus nebulosus) have been captured by eastern screech owls along coastal areas during winter.

From hundreds of prey remains from Ohio, 41% were found to be mammals (23% of which were mice or voles), 18% were birds, and 41% were insects and other assorted invertebrates. Of vertebrates taken in the nesting season, 65% were birds (of about 54 species), 30% were mammals (11% meadow voles; 8% each of house mice and deermice of the genus Peromyscus), 3% were fish, and less than 2% were reptiles and amphibians. In Michigan, among winter foods, 45–50% were meadow voles, 45% were white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and 1–10% were birds; during the summer, these respective numbers changed to 30, 23, and 19%, with as much as 28% of the food in summer being crayfish (Cambarus ssp.). Due to meeting the needs of their nestlings, eastern screech owls frequently consume less per day during summer than they do during winter. Five owls captured in April, averaging about 160 g in males and 190 g in females, gained on average 28 g when captured in fall (October–December) and 13 g when captured in winter (January–February). In Michigan, screech owls consumed about 25% of their own weight per day during winter against 16% of their weight in summer. The average weight of vertebrate prey for screech owls in Michigan is 26 g In Wisconsin, the average weight of vertebrate prey is 28 g. While much of their insect prey can weigh only a fraction of a gram, their largest prey, such as adult rats and pigeons and juvenile rabbits and gamebirds, can weigh up to at least 350 g.

Urban/suburban vs. rural behavior
Eastern screech owls are known for their ability to live in close proximity to humans. There is previous information pointing to potential behavioral adaptations of urban and suburban eastern screech owls from their rural counterparts. There have been previous studies that found suburban eastern screech owls breed no differently in man-made nest boxes than in natural tree cavities. Climate, food sources, and predator presence are some potential factors that impact the behaviors of suburban and rural eastern screech owls. Living in suburbia can have some additional impacts on eastern screech owl behavior such as secondary poisoning, vehicles, and more predation and competition from raccoon, opossum and squirrels.

Previous research has shown that male eastern screech owls find and defend two to three potential nesting sites (man-made and natural) in order to have backups for failed first nesting attempts. However, in a study by Gehlbach it was found that suburban eastern screech owls had fewer alternative nesting sites due to humans cutting down trees with natural cavities, pruning the trees, or filling in the natural cavities with cement. Gehlbach also found that nesting sites close to houses and with fewer surrounding shrubs were some of the most used. Additionally, older eastern screech owls were found to be more likely to habituate to human disturbances compared to younger eastern screech owls. A study by Artuso found that there were larger average brood sizes and earlier average fledging dates of eastern screech owls shown in moderate and high-density suburban areas than in low-density suburban and rural areas. Urban and suburban populations of eastern screech owls are more dense and productive than their rural counterparts. There are various differences in habitat that have impacts on the nesting behaviors of eastern screech owls.

Eastern screech owl feeding behaviors have also been shown through previous research to be impacted by whether the owl lived in a rural or suburban area. In a previous study, prey diversity for eastern screech owls peaked in low-density suburban areas. The owl's feeding habits changed based on the habitat type—owls in low-density suburban sites consumed almost double the amount of birds in non-breeding season as owls in high-density sites and triple that of owls in rural sites. Rural owls generally consumed more invertebrates and fewer caterpillars and earthworms. It is already known that eastern screech owl diets vary throughout the breeding and non-breeding season, but now there is more research describing habitat's role in feeding behaviors as well.

The climate within urban or suburban and rural areas differ as well which in turn impacts eastern screech owl behavior. Suburban climate is typically warmer than rural climate due to the "heat island effect". A previous study showed that as suburban climates got warmer over the course of a few years, eastern screech owls started nesting an average of 4.5 days earlier annually. There were also more avian prey and a 93% success rate in annual nests. Bird baths and feeders located in the suburban habitats were also noted as being likely factors in enhancing residence successes.

Mortality
While eastern screech owls have lived for over 20 years in captivity, wild birds seldom, if ever, live that long. Mortality rates of young and nestling owls may be as high as 70% (usually significantly less in adult screech owls). Many losses are due to predation. Common predators at screech owl nests including Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana), American minks (Neogale vison), weasels (Mustela and Neogale sp.), raccoons (Procyon lotor), ringtails (Bassariscus astutus), skunks (Mephitis and Spilogale sp.), snakes, crows (Corvus sp.), and blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata). Eastern fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) may raid the tree holes being used by eastern screech owls, not only destroying or consuming the eggs, but also displacing the adult owls from the hole to use the hole for themselves. Adults have fewer predators, but larger species of owls do take them, since they have similar periods of activity. Larger owls known to have preyed on eastern screech owls have included great horned owls (Bubo virginianus), barred owls (Strix varia), spotted owls (Strix occidentalis), long-eared owls (Asio otus), short-eared owls (Asio flammeus), and snowy owls (Bubo scandianus). Diurnal birds of prey may also kill and eat them, including Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii), northern harriers (Circus cyaenus), red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis), red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) and rough-legged hawks (Buteo lagopus). Most prolific by far of the eastern screech owl's avian predators is the great horned owl, which can destroy up to 78% of a local population, but locally, Cooper's hawks and barred owls are almost as serious of a threat. A most dramatic case illustrating the owl food chain involved a barred owl, which upon examination after being shot in New England, contained a long-eared owl in its stomach that, in its own stomach, contained an eastern screech owl. All other common owls in this species range also live on similar rodent prey, but direct competition is obviously disadvantageous to the screech owl. One exception is the even smaller northern saw-whet owl, on which eastern screech owls have been known to prey. In rural Michigan, 9 different species of owls and diurnal raptors including the screech owl fed primarily on the same four species of small rodents from the Peromyscus and Microtus genera. Eastern screech owls have had nesting attempts fail due to biocide poisoning, which causes the thinning of eggs and failure of nests, but seemingly not to the overall detriment of the species. Collisions with cars, trains, and windowpanes kill many screech owls, the earlier especially while feeding on road-side rodents and road kills.

Parasites
This species has the potential to be infected by several parasites, including Plasmodium elongatum, Plasmodium forresteri, and Plasmodium gundersi.

title: Eastern screech owl