Happy Bloomsday!

It only happens once a year. Today marks the 106th anniversary of Bloomsday. Pittsburgh has been formally celebrating since 1988, however the first official celebration occured in the form of a five month-long festival in Dublin in 1954. Perhaps you’re wondering to yourself, what is Bloomsday exactly? It’s a day commemorating the life of James Joyce as well as his novel, Ulysses. June 16 is the birthday of James Joyce; the day in which the entire novel Ulysses takes place in Dublin; and marks the first date of Joyce and his wife-to-be Nora Barnacle. Festivities on this day include dramatization and readings of Ulysses, pub crawls and sometimes a traditional Irish breakfast.

Diehard fans of Ulysses have been known to conduct 36-hour readings of the novel in its entirety. Though our local celebration doesn’t reach that kind of intensity, Joyce fans can look forward to a day of reading throughout the city, including the Main Library at 2:30 pm. For the full schedule of when and where, check the Bloomsday in Pittsburgh schedule of events. 

– Lisa

 

A View from the Moon

I’m guessing that your childhood dream of growing up to be an astronaut never came true–or maybe it did. What do I know? Even if you don’t get the opportunity to launch shuttles into outer space, explore the vastness of the universe or experience zero gravity, you can still have a chance at being a lunar scientists. How?! What?! Yes. A lunar scientist, it’s true.

Moon Zoo, a project designed by NASA, is an interactive tool with high-resolution images of the moon for moon enthusiasts and astronomy admirers alike to pore over and over and over. Your well-trained eye can help NASA see the moon in unparalleled detail by identifying unseen craters, interesting features, odd details and perhaps  abandoned astronaut accoutrements! Read more! 

– Lisa

Natural Language

Natural Language, the sister-project of the library’s popular Sunday Afternoon Poetry and Reading Series, is an anthology including the work of over 30 Pittsburgh poets and writers who have read their work in the series since its formation in 2007. Curators of the series and fellow library workers, Renée and Connie, served as editor and designing editor of the anthology.

Thanks to a donation from the non-profit group Poets for Humanity, Natural Language has been published and is available for purchased this Saturday, May 8th at 2 pm.  The event will feature readings from various writers and poets included in the anthology. Books are $10 and all proceeds support the preservation of poetry programming.

click on flyer for larger image

– Lisa

So Pretty, You’ll Want to Eat It

Calendula. Edible - but only the petals!

Have you ever seen something so cute/pretty/fuzzy that you just want to hold it up to your face and take a bite (think kittens and little crocheted animals)? Well, I’ve found myself reacting this way toward vegetation, specifically pretty flowers that are blooming everywhere. With a little research, to my delight I’ve found list upon list of edible flowers guides. This is helpful in getting  started with nutritious nibbling, edible exploration and spicy snacking.    

I am no expert, so as a word of caution, just like anything in nature, be aware of what you’re eating, where it came from, and what’s possibly been sprayed on it, before you determine it safe to put in your mouth.    

Chrysanthemum. Only eat the petals!

For further adventures in the world of pretty edibles, look for these titles at the Library: 

Eat Your Yard! Edible Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Herbs and Flowers for Your Landscape by Nan K. Chase 

  

  

 Rosalind Creasy’s Recipes from the Garden by Rosalind Creasy 

  

  

Edible Flowers: A Kitchen Companion by Kitty Morse  

  

 

– Lisa

 

 

Most Dangerous Women in the Library

Jan Maher, author of Most Dangerous Women (a readers’ theater play), creates a work that is both a book, a play, and a teaching tool that engages audiences by having readers of the work act out roles of important women of the peace movement. Notable, but perhaps obscure or forgotten, figures include Emily Greene Balch, Barbara Lee, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Jeannette Rankin.

Title from data provided by the Bain News Service on the negative. Photo shows men and women on strike outside the Botany Worsted Mills in Passaic, NJ. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2008, and New York Times articles, 1912)

This Saturday, March 27, recount the forgotten history of the women who worked for labor rights, peace and justice over the past century. This is a recorded performance of Most Dangerous Women, featuring members of the Pittsburgh branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Raging Grannies. A question and answer session will follow the screening.

Most Dangerous Women (film screening)
Saturday, March 27
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Classroom A

– Lisa

Disturbing Demises

Ever wonder what the last words uttered by Joan Crawford were?  Or what River Phoenix took to the grave? Any idea why Judy Garland’s body was kept in cold storage for a year? Local author, journalist and dead celebrity expert, Alan Petrucelli has answers to these questions and more in his book, Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demises of the Famous and Infamous. Alan has contributed to many publications, including The New York Times, People, Us Weekly, Family Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal, USA Weekend, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Daily News and Working Mother.

Join noted celebrity journalist Alan W. Petrucelli for a strange, startling and utterly fascinating look behind the word’s most notorious celebrity deaths. Joan Rivers calls Morbid Curiosity “ …a very funny, very clever book—it’s shocking and sinful, and I couldn’t put it down.” Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies says, “Morbid Curiosity is a cornucopia of Hollywood gossip and tidbits, much more humorous than macabre, delivered from a different point of view than any book I’ve read about celebs. It’s breezy, pithy, informative, odd and, despite its subject matter, certain to amuse.”

A question and answer session will follow the presentation. 

Warning: Some photos that will be shown are actual, graphic crime and death scenes.

March 20, 2010
3:00pm – 4:00pm
Center for Museum Education – Classroom A

– Lisa

Bringing a Little Green into Your Life

Money? Nope. This green will introduce a color other than white into your life. With seemingly no end in sight to the winter wonderland outside your window, March 20, the official start of spring, feels much too far away. Terrariums! They’re an easy and fun way to get your spring fix in the dead of winter, not to mention an ideal situation for the forgetful gardener who can’t seem to remember to water.

photo credit, ex.libris. from http://www.flickr.com

With no more than a glass jar, gravel, soil, plants, and some cute vintage woodland inspired trinkets, you can create your very own indoor ecosystem from the comforts of home. Between thrift stores and nurseries, all the low-cost supplies you’ll need can easily be acquired. Tons of online tutorials are available. Some places to get started can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. And as always, the Library has a collection of resources to help you fashion your own personal forest.

Happy planting!

– Lisa

Mind Your Manners, If You Even Have Any in the First Place

Allow me to add the disclaimer that I am mostly writing this post for myself. Okay. I’m entirely writing this post for myself. Table manners. Something I’ve somehow lost, if I ever had any in the first place. I can only guess that the combination of laziness, eating alone and just being extremely hungry have inspired me to revisit the standard rules of etiquette. In preparing to research this topic, I knew the most reliable source would be Emily Post, the Grandmother of etiquette. In a world of portable wireless distractions and being in a hurry, she’s just as relevant today as ever before.

Post’s first etiquette manual, Etiquette: In Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home, was published in 1922 and rose to best seller fame, becoming a reference for all of your mannerly conundrums. Keep in mind, some of Ms. Post’s advice is outdated, however, let us review this piece from a section titled Etiquette of Gloves and Napkin:

Ladies always wear gloves to formal dinners and take them off at table. Entirely off. It is hideous to leave them on the arm, merely turning back the hands. Both gloves and fan are supposed to be laid across the lap, and one is supposed to lay the napkin folded once in half across the lap too, on top of the gloves and fan, and all three are supposed to stay in place on a slippery satin skirt on a little lap, that more often than not slants downward.

This tip of etiquette raises a few questions for me: Who shows up to dinner with a  fan? And how do I get invited to the kind of dinner party that assumes female guests will arrive wearing gloves?

Since I’m a beginner in this matter, I found the children’s guide to be much more my speed. Tips such as “come to the table with clean hands and face,” “stay seated and sit up straight,” and “say ‘please pass the potatoes’ instead of reaching,” are all very basic principles that I’ve let slip in my somewhat small repertoire of manners.

For readers much more advanced than me, here is a selection of books from the Library you might want to borrow:

 The New Book of Table Settings: Creative Ideas for the Way We Gather Today, Chris Bryant and Paige Gilchrist

 

 

Elements of Etiquette: A Guide to Table Manners in an Imperfect World, Craig Claiborne

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Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Eating, Judith Martin

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The Art of the Table: A Complete Guide to Table Setting, Table Manners, and Tableware, Suzanne von Drachenfels

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Excuse me, please, and thank you,

– Lisa

 

Time for Tea

A little fact you might have not known: January is, in fact, National Hot Tea Month. I must say, I’ve traipsed around, completely oblivious to this national observance, but I’m making up for it now by posting about these dear leaves and drinking an afternoon cup.

Tea has a long history, with a recorded consumption dating back to 1000 BC in China. Besides its place in history, tea is known for its medicinal uses and its seer-like leaves left in the bottom of a cup, waiting to be read.

In honor of National Hot Tea Month, steep yourself a cup, curl up with a library book, and sip away!

– Lisa

A Year in Review

And what a year it has been!  While advocacy was a major theme for the Library this year (and that will continue in 2010!), we also managed to have a great big celebration of summer reading, open a new Allegheny branch, and spend more time in the news than ever before.

Of course, each member of the Eleventh Stack team has been sharing their thoughts, ideas and suggestions with you all year long. We thought we’d take this opportunity to bring you highlights from the Library trenches, where we’ve been discovering new books, DVDs, CDs, online resources, or simply learning something new each day.  Come join us anytime!

Kaarin:  Highlights for me this year were new “My Account” features, Reading History and Wish Lists.  I can now keep track of everything I’ve borrowed and everything I want to borrow without having to keep separate lists!  I was thrilled to discover new ways to find good books to read using librarything and goodreads.  And finally, I thoroughly enjoyed two novels I can recommend, The Shack, by William P. Young, and The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

Leigh Anne:  Every December a book sneaks up on me, completely undermining my sedate recap of a literary year with its sheer brilliance.  This year’s book is The Hunger Games, which wraps pointed questions about social and political justice in the guise of a well-written dystopian fantasy novel.  The Hunger Games pits Katniss Everdeen against other teenagers from the various districts of Panem in a televised fight to the death that’s akin, plot-wise,  to both Battle Royale and the Stephen King novellas The Long Walk and The Running Man.  Get your hands on a copy, absorb the brilliance, and then get back in line, immediately for the sequel, Catching Fire.  I promise that, at the very least, you’ll have had some second thoughts about the excesses and inequities of American culture.

Other highlights of the year include a new countywide subscription to Mango Languages and Pittsburgh’s return to the ranks of America’s most literate cities.  The best thing that happens at the library all year, though, happens every day:  I get the privilege of helping you with your information needs, always learning something from you in the bargain.  It’s only going to get better and more interesting in 2010, dear readers, so fasten your seatbelts…

MA: The year for me has been exhilarating in the terms of literature.  I’ve stumbled across books that have, as Leigh Anne once said, presented me with book serendipity.  A few titles from the list:

Traveling with Pomegranates– a wonderful mother-daughter memoir detailing their growth and understanding with each other over a course of drastic change in both their lives. 

The Time Traveler’s Wife:  Niffenegger takes you through a world of almost science fiction proportions, but not overtly so.  The book encompasses the beauty and the despair that love brings to the lives of two people.  A true pleasure to read.

Bright Lights, Big Ass:  A hilarious memoir (one of the many!) by Jen Lancaster, ex sorority girl extraordinaire!  Written with a zest that not many authors can pull off, she takes you through her days so honestly that you can’t help but feel charmed by it. 

Wes: This year I was extremely pleased with the success of our newly created Black Holes, Beakers, and Books science book club. The book club had some great discussions about science, and a few of them were joined by the authors of the books we were reading, including Ann Gibbons, Lee Gutkind, and Marvin Minsky. Stay tuned for even more from Black Holes in 2010!

Lisa: 2009 can be easily summed up for me with this one book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It’s been my go-to cooking guide, impressed many, and has greatly enhanced what’s for dinner!

Bonnie: My favorite reads of 2009:

American Nomads by Richard Grant: Grant is my favorite writer right now.  This gem recounts the history of nomadism in America—beginning with Indians, conquistadors, and then on to truck drivers, mountain men, hobos, cowboys  and bull-riders.  Grant is a nomad himself, and writes about the tension between the “sedentary” and people on the move—read this when you’re in the mood for an adventure.

First Blood by David Morrell: This was a big surprise—I had no idea Rambo was based on a book—and I was totally blown away by it.  Literally!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: This teen novel helped to alleviate my blood thirst caused by reading First Blood.  It’s chock-full full of edge-of-your seat, heart-pounding gloriousness.  If you read it, you will want to give me five dollars for suggesting it.  But I will turn it down.

Wishing you the best in 2010.