This Reader Abhors A Vacuum

Even with a reader as slow as I am, it was bound to happen.  I finished the latest book in George R. R. Martin’s Song Of Ice And Fire series, A Dance With Dragons.   I know he’s got a novella that acts as a prequel of sorts to the Song Of Ice And Fire  called The Bastard Stepchild. It’s available in this collection, and I am working on getting hold of a copy.  But after reading the 1,090 page fifth book, that novella won’t hold me long.  So what next?

I’m a habitual genre fiction reader–anything fantasy, science fiction, pulps, etc.  Now that I stand with most other Martin fans awaiting an uncertain release date for book six in the series, I need to find a new huckleberry.  I was talking with a colleague, and we uncovered a huge hole in my geek-reading résumé:  Stephen King’s Dark Tower series!

Now I could get that snazzy collection, but I decided to go the electronic route and read them one at a time through the library’s Overdrive service.  So I’ve got The Gunslinger on my Sony Reader Wi-Fi and I am really enjoying it so far.  Patiently waiting for Winds of Winter to arrive will not be easy, but Mr. King should help ease the pain at least a bit.

–Scott

Hungry Like the Games

Unless you’ve been living on the moon, you’ve heard that there was this little movie, The Hunger Games, that opened over the weekend. Having read the book it was based on at break-neck speed when it was first released, I made sure I went to see Katniss’s struggles writ large on the screen as soon as I could pencil it into my hectic schedule of shushing noisy patrons and badgering small children for overdue book fees.

This may or may not have been a good idea. I spent half the film sitting on the edge of my seat with a pounding heart, and the other half trying not to sniffle too loudly at sad plot points. Given that I already knew what was going to happen, and that it disturbed me anyway, it bodes ill for anyone who sees the movie without reading the books; then again, perhaps other people are made of sterner stuff than I (you can tell I am a fragile soul because I routinely use phrases like “writ large,” “bodes ill,” and “made of sterner stuff” in my blog posts).

But, tenderhearted lass that I am, I still love a good literary catharsis; given that the Hunger Games movie earned $155 million in its opening weekend, I’m guessing a lot of other people do, too. If you enjoyed reading and watching Katniss’s struggle to survive in the arenas of Panem, you might appreciate these other works of fiction, which feature young women battling restrictive governments, each in her own particular fashion.

Matched, Ally Condie. The Society decides which career you should have, how long you should live, and even whom you should marry.  So when Cassia is matched for marriage with her best friend, Xander, she’s relieved not to have to worry about her future…that is, until her neighbor Ky’s face shows up on her match disk, too. Is following The Society’s orders everything it’s cracked up to be? Or will Cassia have some hard decisions to make?  If you like this book, proceed immediately to the sequel, Crossed.

Divergent, Veronica Roth. Beatrice lives in a world where society is organized into five clans, each dedicated to a particular virtue.  If you feel you don’t fit in your clan, you can change when you’re sixteen, and Beatrice eagerly jumps at the chance. However, her new clan is a source of challenge, change, intrigue, danger…and, oh yeah, just a hint of government conspiracy-esque social engineering. The sequel is supposedly under contract, so find out now why it’s dangerous to be Divergent.

Delirium, Lauren Oliver. The government has found the cure for falling in love: one shot when you’re eighteen, and you’re guaranteed a tranquil, drama-free life. Lana is looking forward to getting her shot and avoiding the “disease” called amor deliria nervosa…until 95 days before her eighteenth birthday, when she falls in love. More heavily grounded in romance, but no less nightmarish in its ramifications, Delirium and its sequel, Pandemonium, are ideal for readers who liked the “Team Peeta / Team Gale” aspect of The Hunger Games.

Your turn:  did you read / see The Hunger Games?  What have you read since then that reminded you of the series?

Leigh Anne

who is also indulging in some bibliotherapy with Jennifer Brown’s Hate List

Iron & Steel – Part I

– THERE is a glamor about the making of steel.  (Fitch, The Steelworkers. 1910.)

It’s an inevitable word association.  It doesn’t matter that 30 – 40 years have passed since the collapse of the monolithic steel industry here; mention Pittsburgh and the reflexive response is going to be either “steel mills” or “Steelers.” Industrial production leaves the kind of physical, emotional and intellectual legacy that medical research just won’t capture.

In 2008, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh received an IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) National Leadership Demonstration Grant. In this grant Carnegie Library undertook to scan, digitize and make available 500,000 pages of historic materials related to the iron and steel industry here.  Our goal was to bring together the varied materials in our collection, books, periodicals, photographs, catalogs and maps that both directly and indirectly touched the iron and steel industries in Pittsburgh and around the region.  The link is inescapable for us; no steel rails – no Carnegie Steel Corp. – No Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

In finding materials to scan we uncovered a treasure trove of distinct pieces of information, shelved in their respective parts of the library collection, that are now brought together digitally to tell a greater story; something harder to do when working with the physical shelving arrangements we use.  All told, we’ve prepared, arranged, recorded, boxed, tracked, cataloged, and determined metadata for 1280 items totaling 522,895 pages. Finding this material is pretty easy.  

Go to http://www.carnegielibrary.org/eCLP/ironsteel/ to read about it, or http://www.clpdigital.org/jspui/ to throw yourself into searching by keyword.  The other way to access these materials is to use the library catalog and conduct an Author Search for Pittsburgh Iron & Steel Heritage Collection, or to do a Keyword Search for IMLS.  Try Keyword searching some obvious names or phrases like IMLS and Carnegie Steel or IMLS and Mesta.  Mesta Machinery Co. was a Pittsburgh based manufacturer of the equipment and machinery that made steel.  Their products are what made all the noise and belched all the smoke.   The reason to include IMLS as part of the search is that there are still many materials we didn’t include in the project, because of condition, content or because they’re still under copyright and can’t be reproduced without permission.  

Not everything scanned has made it into the digital collection yet; the new “product,” usually a PDF, still needs to be cataloged and have its metadata completed, but it’s about 2/3rds finished.  Carnegie Library’s Catalog Librarians may have had the hardest jobs in this project.  

Keep in mind that Saturday, April 14th from 11 – 3 is an open Community Day at Main Library to officially launch the Iron & Steel Heritage Collection.  The library will feature book talks, story sharing, photographic displays, and at 11:30 and 1:30 a presentation with questions and answers by Mr. Tom Barnes, a librarian in Reference Services and a former steel worker.

To be continued…

– Richard

Discovering a New Drummer: Marcus Gilmore

Lately I’ve been listening to Vijay Iyer’s 2005 album Reimagining.  Even though Iyer is a one-of-a-kind pianist, since I’m a drummer, let’s be honest, I’m paying lots of attention to the drummer, Marcus Gilmore.  Instead of the standard, swingin’, ding-dinga-ding ride cymbal pattern of traditional jazz, Gilmore chops up the time to follow Iyer’s quirky lines.  Yet he still drives the music along.

According to Jazziz magazine, “Gilmore started playing in the rhythmically complex environments of Vijay Iyer’s trios and quartets in 2003, when he was a 16-year-old high-school student.”  (Jazziz, Summer 2011, Vol. 28, Issue 6, p.78)  Wow.  And that was after Gilmore had played with saxophonist and odd-time innovator Steve Coleman.  It reminds me of whiz kid Tony Williams (1945-1997) joining Miles Davis’ quintet at age 17 after playing with saxophonist Jackie McLean.

It’s natural that Gilmore (b. October 10, 1986) would gravitate towards great drumming since he is the grandson of still-living, mind-melting, master drummer Roy Haynes (1925- ) and nephew of cornet player, Graham Haynes.  But perhaps more importantly, it’s Gilmore’s practicing and the opportunities he got while a student at the famous Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts that set him on his way.  And in his mid-twenties, Gilmore is already a well-established figure in the world of jazz drumming.

Bill Milkowski sums him up well in Modern Drummer:

…it’s his talent alone that has led Marcus Gilmore to be considered one of the most gifted young drummers on the New York scene.  Blessed with an abundance of chops, flawless time, a penchant for intricate subdivisions, and a remarkable sense of independence on the kit, Gilmore also exhibits rare poise and a quiet intelligence on the bandstand — a natural-born drummer indeed. (Modern Drummer, March 2008, Vol. 32, Issue 3, p. 110)

— Tim

Stuff We’re Enjoying: Early Spring Edition

Summer weather arrived in Pittsburgh this past week, dramatically muscling spring weather out of the way with a flourish, flipping its ponytail over its shoulder and flopping down on a beach towel with a good book.  Your stalwart Eleventh Stack crew has done likewise; here are a few of the library materials we’re enjoying at the turn of the season.

Amy:

This book will mess you up.

I know that everyone and their grandmother is reading The Hunger Games right now, but I don’t feel that I need to, as I’ve already read Lord of the Flies, Battle Royale, and The Long Walk. As a matter of fact, I’m rereading The Long Walk for the fifth or sixth time right now. It’s a Stephen King short novel, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, from back in the days before King started selling novels by the pound. Basically, every year one hundred teenage boys start at the Maine-Canada border and walk south until there is only one boy left. There are rules, of course. And penalties. And insanity. And death. If you read this one, you’ll never forget it.

Don:

Recently I visited some family in Illinois. One of the folks there is a big reader of sci-fi and fantasy, and so I waxed on to him over a couple of beers about a recent title, Embassytown, by China Miéville, that I thought one of the best science fiction titles in years.  He told me that I had to read The City and the City, another Miéville title he insisted was equally fantastic.

And right he was. The basic plot has a noir feel: a dead body is found, a hard-boiled Eastern European detective is investigating. But there’s a twist. The city where the murder takes place (Besz) happens to share contiguous space with another, just barely visible, city (Ul Qoman), where a different population and a very different–though related–language is spoken. And, oh yeah, where the murderer perhaps came from. I’ve just started this one and once again  Miéville is pushing–literally, this time–the boundaries of speculative fiction.

It seems I ought to go to Peoria more often.

Jess:

The following two CDs have been in heavy rotation during my daily commute:

The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond. First things first: contemporary country music mostly makes my brain hurt. However, for some inexplicable reason, I love the current wave of bluegrass/folk-alt-country stuff that’s out there (Avett Brothers, anyone?). Thankfully the music producers went that route for most of this soundtrack, which fits the tone of Katniss and Peeta’s District 12 perfectly. I especially like the tracks from Neko Case (“Nothing to Remember”) and Kid Cudi (“The Rule and the Killer”).

Say Anything’s Anarchy, My Dear. I’ve always admired SA leader and primary lyricist, Max Bemis, for his smart, brutally honest songwriting. Though he’s mellowed a bit with age and marriage, he’s still telling it like it is. Standout tracks include “Overbiter,” which includes backing vocals from his wife, Sherri DuPree of the band Eisley, and describes their long-distance courtship; “Admit it Again,” a sequel of sorts to the “Admit It!!!” track on the …Is A Real Boy album (completely worth tracking down to dissect the lyrics); and the title track, “Anarchy, My Dear,” an almost ballad-y ode to rebellion.

Leigh Anne:

I’d like to be able to tell you I’m reading something incredibly literate, deliciously witty, or professionally advantageous. However, I am forced to confess that, in this unseasonable heat, the best I can do is leaf through magazines. Super Girl Scout Niece #1 was selling subscriptions, and I’m a huge fan of The Girl Scouts, so I’m happily parked in front of a fan with Oprah, yoga, and some warm-weather recipe ideas.

Maria:

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic, by Professor X. This eye-opening and provocative treatise caught my eye in a review journal. It’s an expansion of an article originally published in The Atlantic magazine, and deals with the unprepared students colleges recruit and the status and treatment of professors (especially adjunct professors like the author), with a bit of the author’s life story mixed in. I was intrigued because the author is an English professor, and he writes extremely well, so the book is interesting, illuminating, and readable. He writes anonymously because he’s worried he’ll lose his job.

Suzy:

For my birthday I received a Kindle Fire from my awesome husband , who always buys me things I think I don’t want until I get them. To my eternal (but not blushing) chagrin, the first thing I did was purchase the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy from Amazon. In case you live under a rock, Fifty Shades is a self-published “erotic BDSM” e-book by a little-known British author named E. L. James. I zipped through Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades Darker in two days. I was ready to run out and buy some grey ties and an Audi.

For over a week now I’ve malingered on the final book, Fifty Shades Freed. I have simply stopped caring about the characters, the story, and the sex. The controversy surrounding this book reminds me of a quote from Fear of Flying author Erica Jong: “My reaction to porn films is as follows: after the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”

Tara:

Sublime Frequencies re-issues strange and wonderful music from all over the world, everything from Bollywood steel guitar to what’s playing on the radio in Morocco. It’s perfect music to listen to while cooking or porch-sitting, and we have quite a few albums available for check-out here at the library.

I’ve also just watched a recently re-released gem on DVD called A Thousand Clowns. Fans of films about eccentric and lovable iconoclasts (and the films of Wes Anderson) should check this one out immediately.

Tim:

I’m not enjoying this “nice” weather because it’s disturbing to have 80 degree weather in mid-March.  And you know what else doesn’t like it?  Spinach.  Or radishes.  Or any of the other cool weather crops that only grow well when temperatures are in the 60s and 70s.

So I’ll be forced to enjoy such books as The Gardener’s Weather Bible: How to Predict and Prepare for Garden Success in Any Kind of Weather by Sally Roth or The Weather-resilient Garden : a Defensive Approach to Planning & Landscaping by Charles W.G. Smith.

Your turn.  Hot enough for you?  What are you reading / watching / listening to this spring?

Some Shortcuts

I try to keep up on things. I try to read and improve my understanding of the world around me, its history, and the events that have brought us here. 

It’s really tough.  Really, really tough. There are many more places and things happening in the world than there are hours in my day to investigate them.  So when I try to wrap my head around a region like the Middle East I am looking for a leg up.

Enter the documentary Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I. Released in 2006 and directed by veteran journalist and military historian Marty Callaghan, Blood and Oil is a dense and revealing documentary.  But why World War I? It may seem like ancient history to some, but the modern Middle East as we know it was born in the Great War’s wake.  The documentary takes us through the military campaigns of the British, Russian and Ottoman Empires and into the politics and maneuvering in the immediate post war period.  For fans of military history, this documentary lucidly outlines World War I’s campaigns within the region in dramatic detail.   Ataturk and Gallipoli and the pan-Turkish dreams of the ill-fated expedition of Enver Pasha are featured in this rich film as well as the Russian invasion of Anatolia and the tragedy of Smyrna.  The post war period covered by the documentary is the real pay-off to people on a mission to provide context to the Middle East.  The defeated Ottoman Empire was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey by the victorious French and British, and the decisions they made nearly a century ago set the table for events today. This film explains the various agreements and secret treaties that gave birth to a group of nations almost overnight, a set of borders and new countries designed to preserve influence and maintain access to an increasingly vital resource, oil, which had only recently replaced coal in the new ships of the British navy. It isn’t hard to see how these new nations suffered the occasional post-colonial migraine as ethnic and national aspirations clashed with an artificial and seemingly arbitrary set of circumstances. Understanding the modern Middle East begins with understanding the post war period and this documentary is an incredible shortcut.  The human cost of imperial and national ambition is displayed with moving sympathy throughout the film.

 Africa: 56 countries sharing a population of over a billion people. Now there is a region I need to work on.  I needed help there, a good primer, and I found The Africa Book. This weighty tome contains a spread for each country featuring vital statistics, a brief history and cultural information, and a selection of beautiful photographs. The history sections are short but revealing, showcasing the continent’s richness and complexity, host to dozens of empires, foreign colonizers, and the sometimes difficult paths to nationhood in post-colonial times.  It’s a Lonely Planet book so the target market is young, wealthy, wearing a back pack, and looking to score at the ex-pat bar, but the book suits my purposes equally well.  Thanks to this book I could read the news on Africa without constantly referencing Wikipedia.  Soon I will be expanding my reading into some general histories and country specific works and then I will be really set.

And then onto South America….

Sky

Anne Frank

The Moveable Bookcase

I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam before I actually read the book Diary of a Young Girl. I had been honestly afraid to read it. I had seen the photos of freed Holocaust survivors taken by an American GI, one of the first liberators of a Nazi concentration camp¹, at a very young age. A visiting guest showed these slides at my yeshiva when I was 7 or so. The Head Rabbi told us that we could close our eyes if we wanted to. I perhaps should have, in retrospect. I had a lot of angst about concentration camps after that. I avoided anything that mentioned the Holocaust for many years.  I did not read the diary or watch things like Schindler’s list².

I felt obliged to read the diary after my visit, and much to my surprise, found that it was not the dour, frightening document that I expected, but a highly readable and relatable memoir of a normal teen forced to live in cramped quarters with many people. The circumstance and the fate of Anne is what makes it heartbreaking, not the text.

In the past few weeks, a coincidental convergence of new fiction relating to Anne Frank has come my way. I put two books on hold; each had a waiting list, and got them at the same time:

Hope: A Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander, reviewed here in a blog post by Don. Now, this main character Kugel (excuse me, but this is the name for noodle pudding in Yiddish), has serious Holocaust angst. All sorts of issues surrounding Anne Frank come up. A book that is darkly funny – my favorite kind!

What we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander. This book of short stories is like eating a piece of cake (or kugel even), satisfying, delicious, and more fun than bread. It is expertly crafted storytelling, smart, humorous, and thought-provoking³. It was just what I needed after reading all 5 books of the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) saga in a row.

The strange convergence continued for me when I read the story of Mormons posthumously baptizing Anne Frank. That this story broke as I was listening to The Book of Mormon⁴ on endless repeat on my CD player, plus the two aforementioned books, all at the same time, is just too weird. Oy! 

-Joelle

1.  When trying to verify the facts of this statement or come up with a link, I was forced to glimpse some photos – I found that I still cannot bear to look.

2.  I have since seen this excellent, heart-rending film.

3.  Mormons and Holocaust angst feature prominently in the title piece. Double Oy! 

4.  Brilliant! Funny! Worthy of the abundant praise heaped on it!

Home Sweet Home

I recently embarked on the great adventure towards home ownership, with a little help from the library. The first book I checked out was Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home. This book was fantastic, and covered all the basic steps from applying for a mortgage to making an offer on a house.

CLP offers quite a few resources for those interested in buying their first house:

As well as resources on what to do with your home once you get it:

And how to fix things when they fall apart:

Of course, if this isn’t inspiration enough, then you may need to take a listen and absorb the wise musings of those 1980s hair-metal philosophers, Mötley Crüe.

Happy house hunting,

Tara

And the Ladies Have It

Welcome spring, and welcome Suzy–please enjoy the first blog post from our newest contributor, who will be joining us monthly in the writing staff rotation.

For Women’s History Month I wanted to honor the “bad” girls of history. Then I got hung up on the definition of “bad” in this case. Do I mean bad like Nell Gwyn, orange-seller, comedienne and long-time mistress of King Charles II of England? Or bad like Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, one of the most prolific serial killers of all time and fan of bathing in virgin blood? Both ladies are fascinating, but there are degrees of bad. I think Gwyn’s amorous misdemeanors sort of pale in comparison to murdering 600 people. But I’m judgy like that.

So, being the scientific chick that I am, I chose my favorites.  Without further ado, my top 10 bad girls of history:

 Nell Gwyn –Reputed to have told her coachman fighting for her honor, “I am a whore. Find something else to fight about.” Gwyn’s feisty wit and lusty personality are the reason King Charles II, on his deathbed, begged his brother, “Let not poor Nelly starve.” And she didn’t.

Cleopatra–Sure, she was an amazing administrator and Egypt’s culture and economy flourished under her reign. But she murdered her own brother and sister to become the Queen of Egypt! She was the mistress of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony! She swallowed a priceless pearl to demonstrate her wealth!

 Elizabeth Bathory–As mentioned above, killed 600 people in pretty gruesome fashion. 600 PEOPLE. That’d be like killing all of my Facebook friends. Twice.

Bonnie Parker–I freak out if I get pulled over for speeding. Parker was involved in at least one hundred felony criminal actions during her two-year career in crime. This includes, but is not limited to, kidnapping, murder, armed robbery and one major jail break. She also chain-smoked Camels.

Mae West–The very first play she wrote (“Sex”) got her convicted on a morals charge. But the lady who said, “Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often,” was an instant success and never looked back.

Marie Antoinette–Hopefully we all know by now that Marie Antoinette never said, “Let them eat cake.” But she wasn’t that into helping the starving masses either. And she really, really, really, really liked clothes.

Margaret Sanger–Considering the current controversy over birth control and woman’s health, we ladies may need to channel the spirit of Sanger in 2012. She promoted the pill before the pill existed. And got tossed in the clink for it.

Anne Boleyn–Did she sleep with her brother? And a poet? And a groom? Did she really commit treason?  I don’t know, but she had six fingers and a killer sense of style.

Lucretzia Borgia–Again with the incest. But also a poisoner!

Wallis Simpson–King Edward VII of the United Kingdom abdicated his throne to marry her. Enough said.

Your turn–who’s your favorite “bad” girl? 

–Suzy

Tea Ritual

There’s nothing quite like a cup of hot tea to warm you up when it’s very cold outside or, as more often happens, you’re just so cold you can hardly stand it. When I’m feeling very cold (which, unfortunately, is often) it’s the only thing that will warm me completely. It’s also nice to share with my co-workers.

 

 

 

 

 I’ve always enjoyed an afternoon beverage after lunch; it’s my dessert, my daily ritual and it calms and centers me. And, after all, what goes better with a good book than a cup of tea? In the summertime, I drink iced decaf espresso but, during the cold months of fall and winter, I switch to hot English Breakfast or Earl Grey tea.

 

When I drink tea in the evening, it’s usually herbal (I like fruity teas best) or decaffeinated as I’m superstitiously convinced any caffeine after 2pm will negatively affect my sleep; my husband says it’s psychosomatic but I don’t care.

There are several lovely little books that describe the ritual of tea:

 Tea Bliss : Infuse Your Life with Health, Wisdom, and Contentment 

by Theresa Francis-Cheung

Tea Gardens : Places to Make and Take Tea  by Ann Lovejoy

Tea Culture by Beverly Dubrin

The Art of Taking Tea by Kim Waller

 

~Maria, who has recently discovered the treasure trove of teas to try at Nicholas Tea & Coffee in downtown Pittsburgh.