Arts & Culture

  • A Visit to New Orleans, Part 2

    (Find Part 1 of this post here) “To be engaged in some small way in the revival of one of the great cities of the world is to live a meaningful existence by default.”-Chris Rose, 1 Dead in Attic The third most important is Hurricane Katrina and the toll it left on the city. Even though… Continue reading

  • A Visit to New Orleans, Part 1

    “New Orleans’ food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.” -Mark Twain For the past two years I’ve gone to New Orleans to volunteer with Rebuilding Together. Those trips have been the best experiences of my life. Getting to understand the importance of that city and to help them recover is something I will… Continue reading

  • Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise

    “It was the princess who entered my room. I was on my bed dressed only in a simple pareo [wraparound skirt]. No way to receive a woman of class…Vaitua was a true princess if indeed any still exist, since the Europeans have reduced everything in this country to their own level. In fact, she arrived there… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: He Was A Friend Of Mine

    There are some movies that mean more to you because of when you saw them. They can bear repeated watchings because they are just that good or because some combination of story and nostalgia provides a kind of comfort food. One such movie for me is the science fiction sleeper, “Enemy Mine” (1985). Starring Dennis… Continue reading

  • Question of the Month: A January Jingle

    Following on the heels of my recent post about non-Christmas winter songs, here’s a related post regarding Jingle Bells, one of those great songs that we can sing right on through to the vernal equinox! A patron had one of his great-grandfather’s letters dated Oct. 22, 1863. In it, the great-grandfather says, “Mother wrote that… Continue reading

  • Everything and the Kitchen Sink: Social Realism in post-war Britain

    The rain falls hard on a humdrum town This town has dragged you down And everybody’s got to live their life And God knows I’ve got to live mine… So goes the opening verse of The Smiths‘ classic song, “William, It Was Really Nothing,” a brilliant pastiche of British post-war, kitchen sink dramas. The Manchester… Continue reading

  • Heavy Rotation 2011: The Year of the Mix

    For many reasons, 2011 was my Year of the Mix — as in mixtape, or more accurately, mix CD. I made about a half-dozen mixes over the course of the year for various friends and family members, and received about as many, if not more, in return. Each mix I received exposed me to music I’d never heard… Continue reading

  • The Scarlet Letter Revisited

    “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”  -The Scarlet Letter What I love most about The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is it’s timelessness. It is just… Continue reading

  • A Different Beauty: Sharing Film with Children

    I vividly remember the first time I saw The Red Balloon as a child. I’ve never forgotten the haunting, stark beauty of 1950s Paris, the unapologetic taking of the child’s perspective, and the power of images with minimal dialogue. As much as I loved, and love, the work of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc,… Continue reading

  • Winter Wonderland in March? You bet!

    Okay, I admit it. I’m a bit of a holiday music freak. I just love it! I often lament the fact that there’s such a small window of time each year where I can wholeheartedly indulge in my passion. But, I’ve come to the realization that many songs get undeservedly stuck with the dreaded “Christmas… Continue reading

  • A Month of Uncomfortable Cinema: 31 Disturbing Films

    It is the season of good cheer, so why am I posting a list of 31 of the creepiest, most unsettling movies ever made? Well as we tucked into our turkey this Thanksgiving, my mom mentions that she’s been reading my posts here at Shelf Talk. Aw, thanks Mom. “Do you really like all those dark, disturbing books? Don’t you read anything… Continue reading

  • Finding a Hit Man at your Public Library

    The seasoned professionals at your library pride ourselves on helping our patrons with their every need. We are highly skilled at cleaning up messes and tying up loose ends, at rubbing out your troublesome irritations, and making problems go away. So we have a certain grudging admiration for the skilled operators seen plying their deadly… Continue reading

  • Question of the Month: Baroque music notations

    I have two music questions, both having to do with 18th century music notation: 1. Quantz used two slash marks, or something like quotation marks, over some notes. It looks like some kind of accent. What is the name of this mark and what does it mean? 2. in Telemann’s engravings he used a mark like… Continue reading

  • Voice on the Radio: Fictional DJs

    On the radio we heard November Rain                   That solo’s really long but it’s a pretty song                                      We listened to it twice cause the DJ was asleep –Regina Spektor Radio DJ Berry Lambert  lives her life shrouded with superstition in the novel With A Little Luck by Caprice Crane. She avoids black cats and… Continue reading

  • Grit, Twang, Soul: Your Southern roots are showing.

    Last night, watching Jim White cruising the fecund, salvation-starved backroads of the deep South in Searching for the Wrong-eyed Jesus, I kept hazily reflecting back on my own Southern childhood. My folks and I came north to Seattle when I was just four years old. From San Francisco. Yet White’s musing, music-filled backroads travelogue is suffused with… Continue reading

  • Who is Fantômas?

    “Fantômas.”                 “What did you say?” “I said: Fantômas.”                 “And what does that mean?” “Nothing…Everything!”                  “But what is it?” “Nobody….and yet, yes, it is somebody!”                  “And what does the somebody do?” “Spreads terror!” A century ago, these words unleashed reign of terror upon the literary world which continues to this day. It was… Continue reading

  • The Reading Dead: A Zombie literary salon.

    AMC’s The Walking Dead has risen again for a second season, but the aisles of your local library are already crowded with zombies, including Robert Kirkman’s original graphic novel series upon which the show is based (and what isn’t based on graphic novels at this point?) and the first season on DVD.   For anyone who thought the zombie craze was so 2009,… Continue reading

  • Bigfoot Sighted at the Library

    Many of us look back at the 70’s with fond embarrassment. Feathered hair, down vests, CB radios. This was the decade in which Clint Eastwood co-starred with an Orangutan, and we liked the idea so much that for three years we tuned in to watch Greg Evigan and a truck-driving chimpanzee in BJ and the Bear, a… Continue reading