Things That Have Made Me Cry (Lately)

Me and Sarah McLachlan. Bringing you down like a champ.

I cry over everything. Or as my best friend put it so eloquently, “I feel all the feels.” If you live in Pittsburgh you may know that the sun hasn’t come out in like eleventy months. The whole city of Pittsburgh (including me) has looked like this forever:

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We have a city-wide depression going on. Everyone I know is miserable. When it started snowing again Monday night, I burst into tears.  All I want to do is sleep and eat potatoes. I am longing for Spring and bike rides and reading outside and swimming and sunshine and fresh vegetables…

Hah! None for you.

But since that’s a million years away and I enjoy going from one extreme to another, let’s talk about things that have made me cry lately (besides everything).

1. This insanely quotable book: The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.

Angsty, funny teenagers. Cancer. Dream trip to Amsterdam to find the author of a favorite book. First love. Friendship. Death. Grieving. Coming out in movie form (filmed in Pittsburgh!) on June 6. See the trailer here. See a ton of librarians watch it en masse and cry together. See me cry if someone says “okay” in a certain tone of voice. 

2. This movie: Blue is the Warmest Color

But I have infinite tenderness for you. I always will. All my life long.

Blue is the Warmest Color was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In an unprecedented move, the award was granted to not only the director (Adbellatif Kechiche), but also the to the lead actresses, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. Based off of the graphic novel by Julie Maroh,  and showing at the Hollywood Theater, Blue follows the life and love of two young lesbians. It beautifully captures that obsession you feel when you first fall in love, when you can’t stop thinking about it and your world revolves around them. And then. There is also a break-up scene that is harrowing in its realism and flat-out pain and fury. Did I mention I saw this on Valentine’s Day?

3. This song: Say Something by A Great Big World

Say something, I’m giving up on you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.

I know, I know. Don’t judge. I’m not the only one. Oh the tears! Other songs making me cry recently include: Song for Zula by Phosphorescent, All I Need by Radiohead and Love Out of Lust by Lykke Li. I dare you to listen to any of these and not want to get under the covers until April.

4. This photo of Otis smiling:

I don’t know why this makes me teary-eyed. I’m fragile. He’s cute.

5. This text from my best friend:

I love u and ur awesome!!

Because we all need to know we are loved and awesome.

Here’s to spring flowers and blah, blah, blah-

suzy, the saddest librarian

Snowmaggeddon or Global Warming?

I can’t tell you the number of global warming jokes I’ve heard since Pittsburgh (and much of the East Coast) was blanketed in record-breaking snows over a week ago.  While Donald Trump argues that Al Gore’s Nobel Prize should be taken away, Gore counters that global warming can actually be responsible for extreme weather conditions like we’ve seen this winter.  Personally, I’m just glad that the wolves didn’t escape from the zoo and we had to hole up in the public library (although there are worse places I can think of to get stuck!). 

Whether you’re a global warming skeptic or a firm believer, we’ve got lots of materials on the topic.  A great place to look for information on global warming and many other issues is the Opposing Viewpoints series.  These books highlight often controversial topics, and provide essays that argue both for and against different viewpoints.  The database Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center provides even more information, and if you’re snowbound you can access it from home with your library card.  Both sources are great for getting some basic background on a topic, whether you want to satisfy your curiosity on a particular issue or are writing a paper on a topic.

-Irene

Serendipity and a Park Bench

Last week’s snowstorms affected the Carnegie Library’s users and staff alike.  In today’s guest post, Richard reflects upon his brush with what many are calling The Blizzard of 2010.

Given the week we’ve just had, after spending several hours out in the snow you could be excused if you thought I was going to bring up Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”.  I’m not; I’m more in mind of Neil Diamond.

"What a beautiful noise comin' up from the street."

I happen to be fortunate in that I live across from one of Pittsburgh’s gems: Highland Park.  The park, which opened in 1893, is a natural wonder overlooking the Allegheny River (as well as my house), and certainly makes it hard to believe that my corner of the Highland Park neighborhood is really within city limits.  On Tuesday I was able to get out and try some less-than-serious cross-country skiing on both the unplowed streets and in the park itself.  By not plowing down to the asphalt, Pittsburgh Public Works provided me with the perfect skiing surface– not roadway, and not two feet of powder more appropriate for snowshoes.

I spent about two hours early Tuesday evening in and around the park, almost alone, but not quite.  It wasn’t bucolic; I wasn’t making the first tracks on virgin snow, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t need to:  I’ve done that before.

This was an urban experience — hence the reference to Neil Diamond.  I was thinking of his 1976 song Beautiful Noise.  I was skiing above Bunker Hill Road, which is not normally a quiet country lane.  For three days, though, there had been no buses and few plows, and only the foolish or eternally optimistic had taken their chances going up or down.

"What a beautiful noise comin' up from the park."

During my sojourn there were just enough buses and cars off to the side to remind me where I was without disturbing me…and in a way, the interruptions were reassuring.  In the park itself there were two or three other people and the falling snow.  As I was trying to stay on relatively packed areas — trails imply a deliberate “from here to there,” and that wasn’t the case — I came across two snow-covered park benches placed under a copse of two or three pine trees.  They were arranged in such a way that the trees afforded some protection from the falling snow, and the panorama of the restored fountain was open before them.

They were perfectly alluring, and we owe a modest amount of gratitude to

"It's a beautiful noise made of joy and of strife."

whoever placed them there, whether deliberately or just because it seemed like a good place.  I’ll make sure to go back and check them out in the spring and summer, when the sounds of the street are a little clearer.

–Richard

"Like a symphony played by the passing parade, it's the music of life."

All photos copyright 2010, RK.  Used with permission.