Activism or eyesore? Statement or nuisance? Needed or not?
These were some of the questions raised by last week’s “Trash Tree,” an installation created by Zero Waste Yellow Springs, a small group affiliated with the YS Resilience Network that formed about a year ago.

Springboro resident Marilyn Grounds had an “aha” moment visiting her son in East Nashville this summer. Browsing the city’s shops and finding unusual items that she loved, she realized that she wanted not just to buy interesting things, but also to sell them.

Life feels fragile when it’s bundled into boxes, especially when it’s bundled into boxes marked “FRAGILE,” a poignant convergence of packing parlance and metaphor.

Antioch College’s next president, Thomas Manley, has a quiet, even gentle voice. He’s not afraid of the thoughtful pause, both before and after speaking. He weighs his words like the student of poetry that he is — Kenneth Rexroth is a particular love.

For me, though, the heron was the total heart-throb, the show-stopper, the bird of birds. His rosy neck and blue-grey shoulders rippled like water; he was water flying over water, an awesome feat of paint and metaphysics.

Sherryl Kostic’s “would you, could you” In a Frame is closing next month after 20 years in the village. The combined gallery and framing business has occupied its light, bright glass-fronted shop (formerly Joe Holly’s Cleaners) on Corry St. for the past 10 years.

Villagers gathered to enjoy the opening of Lance Rudegeair’s “Endangered Species” exhibit at “would you, could you” In a Frame last Friday, Nov. 20

Four months after hiring a new executive director, the Yellow Springs Community Children’s Center is again without permanent leadership — but the center’s board has moved swiftly to pull together a credible interim team. Other changes, including new fundraising efforts, are also underway.

I love this painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, and last night — I saw it. Out in the world, I mean. Something better than it, even.

Village Council’s recent decision to finish downtown streetscape improvements in 2016 has tipped the general fund budget back into the red by roughly a quarter of a million dollars. Budget figures presented at Council’s latest round of budget talks, on Nov. 2, revise the earlier forecasts of a surplus in the 2016 general fund, which represents the majority of the Village’s operating budget outside of its enterprise funds.