The Masque of the Red (Carpet) Death

With apologies to Poe, it would seem that a fascination with celebrity deaths does, indeed, hold sway over all, especially when three cultural icons pass in quick succession. Where does this morbid interest come from? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect it might be part of the larger pattern of the [...]

Ok, I Get It

It’s taken me awhile to hop on the graphic novel craze, but after recently reading a few excellent ones I think I finally get what it’s all about. Here are the books that got me hooked:
All-Star Superman
I wasn’t much of a Superman fan until I read this. It’s a fresh take on the classic Superman story with some pretty heavy duty science fiction [...]

Little Big Horn Remembered

Yesterday was the anniversary of one of the most storied battles in American history–Little Big Horn.
The Library of Congress’ wonderful archival web site provides a wonderful summary of the happenings on this fateful day:
“As the military stepped up its efforts at removing Indians from lands desired by white settlers, Native American tribes focused their attacks [...]

Math Anxiety

Of all the indignities one has to suffer through as a teenager, I think math class was the thing I dreaded most about those years. Ask me a math question to this day and I’m likely to break out in a cold sweat. Given the number of books on how to overcome math anxiety, I’m [...]

What David McCullough Said

If learning to use the library were the only thing students learned in school, they’d be far ahead. College isn’t necessary when one has access to Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. You could turn students loose here for four years, with librarians’ help, and they’d learn more, maybe better, than they’d learn in college.
Historian, author, David McCullough . . [...]

A Pleasing Melancholy

In The Anatomy of Melancholy, the early 17th-century English churchman and scholar, Robert Burton, wrote:
Many Men are melancholy by hearing Musick, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.¹
Someone like me, a fan of opera, black metal, death metal, punk, folk laments, early blues, dark ambient, etc., would have to agree.
Naturally, those who are [...]

Juneteenth

This past weekend, with kindred spirits around the country, I observed Juneteenth Day, a wholly holy day for me.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 granted freedom to enslaved persons in regions controlled by Union forces, and although the eventual surrender of the Confederacy would end the widespread practice of slavery, news about the Proclamation spread unevenly [...]

Serendipity for a Friday Afternoon

 One of the things a librarian might tell you, if you managed to ply her with a preferred libation or two while off duty, is that serendipity is one of her favorite forms of searching.  Similarly, for customers, one of the favorite ways of searching is browsing our extensive shelves.  Hardly a day goes by when [...]

summer reading

Ah, summer.  Time to relax, take a vacation, lie in the grass…  or not.  Kids may get the lazy days of summer, but many of us adults keep going to work, schlepping the kids around, running errands and pretty much continuing what we do all year round.  Still, that’s no excuse not to participate in Adult [...]

“Sister Outsider:” Audre Lorde

Nearly every article on poet and activist Audre Lorde makes use of her self-description: “I am a Black, lesbian, feminist, warrior, poet, mother doing my work.”   Lorde valued identity as a source of her work, and said, “My poetry comes from the intersection of me and my worlds.”  Regarding identity, Lorde considered herself a “continuum of [...]