It’s hard to believe, 2008 is just a blur now and it seems like it was only yesterday the Eleventh Stack team was working on creating our blog. This being the last post of the year, we found it most appropriate to list our favorite library materials encountered in 2008.
A Sort of Best of Stuff List [...]
Entries from December 2008
December 31, 2008
A Sort of Best of Stuff List…
December 30, 2008
Romania Anyone?
“Your passport is the greatest thing you own. It is your key to the world.”
-EB, 2003
I remember when I first got my USA passport back in 2003. It was a period of great excitement in my life. I was just finishing my first year of college and was preparing for my first trip abroad [...]
December 29, 2008
The Best Use of Opera in a Movie in 2008
In the last couple years, I have seen lots of the Metropolitan Opera’s live opera HD simulcasts so that’s my vote for best use of a movie theater for opera. But for the best use of opera in a movie, I was surprised to hear an opera excerpt brilliantly used in the soundtrack to the ridiculous [...]
December 26, 2008
The Man Who Invented Christmas
I don’t read the newspaper very carefully in December. I’m short on time to complete holiday projects, and I do what I can to conserve hours. As I race and skim through the national, regional, business and arts news, one recurring theme catches my attention. Articles that mention Charles Dickens and his holiday story A [...]
December 23, 2008
At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver
It is no small irony that, for exactly the reason that Mary Oliver is loved by legions of fans, she is also reviled by many critics: a simple, clear spoken language and a set of themes, predominately nature-based, that she returns to again and again.
Next month, the 3 Poems By Discussion Group will be considering [...]
December 22, 2008
Happy Winter Solstice
Greetings from Barichara, Santander, Colombia! Being so much closer to the equator, I didn’t get to experience the Winter Solstice yesterday. Here, sunrise and sunset are at the same time through out the year, give or take a half hour or so. And as much as I’m enjoying myself on my vacation, [...]
December 19, 2008
20 Sundays of Pittsburgh Writers
This coming Sunday marks the 20th installment of the Sunday Poetry & Reading Series (which falls on the Winter Solstice this month). In the lifetime of the series so far, more than 30 poets and writers–nearly all of them from Pittsburgh–have graced the microphone and ears in the Quiet Reading Room.
Our next featured writer, Angele Ellis, reads this Sunday, [...]
December 18, 2008
Hummerland shout-out!
Today the Film & Audio Department received a phone call from Ms. Suzanne Newman, the director of Hummerland, the documentary that we’re showing tonight as part of our Real to Reel Documentary Film Series. How randomly cool is that? I think that she’s as happy as we are that we’re able to show her movie in [...]
December 18, 2008
Love, Forgiveness, and Wisdom
Looking for a great way to welcome 2009? Beginning in January, 2009, the Carnegie Library-Main will begin a five-part humanities book discussion entitled Love, Forgiveness, and Wisdom (LFW). The series will be held on Thursdays this winter, from 6:00-8:00 pm in the Quiet Reading Room at the Main branch.
Our branch was one of 50 public [...]
December 17, 2008
Red penguins and green grocery clerks, or the wonders of the eighth stack.
Every December for the past three or four years I’ve scampered up to our eighth stack and pulled out a selection of old Dewey-classed nonfiction books, all rebound in red and green, and made a lovely holiday-esque display out of them.
Last year’s books came from the 500s, where we shelve science. This year I started with [...]
