Arts & Culture

  • Technical Proficiency, Part I

    A virtuoso is generally defined as a person technically proficient on an instrument or in a field. While a technically sufficient definition, it is as unsatisfying as a birthday cake with white paste frosting. While I may be technically proficient at walking and could possibly qualify, John Cleese would be correctly considered an ambulatory virtuoso.… Continue reading

  • Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets movie

    Come to the Central Library this Sunday, March 21, from 2-4pm in the Microsoft Auditorium on Level 1 for a film screening of Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets. This film is a memorable and moving portrait of the lives of street kids living in Casablanca’s abandoned lots. Ali, Kouka, Omar and Boubker, four young… Continue reading

  • Not Just a Pretty Face

    It’s not the power of the curse – it’s the power you give the curse. Born with a pig snout for a nose due to her rich family’s curse Penelope, played by Christina Ricci,  must find one man to marry her from the world of high society blue blood to make that curse go away forever.… Continue reading

  • St Patrick’s Day & the Irish Festival are coming!

    The green in Seattle this month is not just the trees, lawns, and flora doing their thing. It’s countdown to Wednesday, March 17th! There’s no formal connection to green and St. Patrick’s Day. According to some Internet sites, the link is that green is the color of spring, Ireland, and the shamrock. This is an Irish… Continue reading

  • Shamrocks, Shillelaghs, and Shenanigans: Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Children!

    It’s the time of year when we all wish to have a wee bit o’ the Irish heritage in our family tree.  Whether you hail from the Emerald Isles or just wish you did, get ready to dress in green, dance a jig and follow a rainbow to its end. Construct a leprechaun trap, share… Continue reading

  • Library Day at Seattle Art Museum

    If you’re a Seattle Public Library cardholder, you probably already know that your library card gives you free access to books, DVDs, CDs, eBooks, databases and many more resources. But did you know that this Sunday only it’s also a free ticket to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM)? That’s right, Sunday, February 28 is Seattle… Continue reading

  • Modern-Day Slavery series starts February 28

    It is hard to believe and difficult to fathom that you could, today, in the 21st century, find yourself living next door to a slave. Author, Kevin Bales describes how a person might find him or herself in such a dire predicament in the book The Slave Next Door:  Human Trafficking and Slavery in American… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction for the Rest of Us

    I’ll admit it straight up: I’ve never really liked science fiction.  I’ve never seen a single episode of Star Trek or read a book by Robert Heinlein.  But I’m a librarian, and in order to recommend books to readers of every genre, I have to read outside my comfort zone.  Thanks to a coworker, patrons,… Continue reading

  • What’s Next? David Tennant and Doctor Who

    Oh, David Tennant; you were the only Doctor for me. Over the holidays, the British TV series Doctor Who bid farewell to its 10th Doctor and welcomed a new actor to play the 11th (confused? Think James Bond, but with an explanation for the change). Now that it’s over, how are David Tennant fans to… Continue reading

  • The Men of the BBC

    “I’m not hung up about Darcy. I do not sit at home with the pause button on Colin Firth in clingy pants, okay? I love the love story. I love Elizabeth. I love the manners and language and the courtesy. It’s become part of who I am and what I want. I’m saying that I… Continue reading

  • Standards and Forgotten Gems: Sheet Music Redux

    Many master songwriters from Tin Pan Alley have songbooks devoted to their works. However, though these songwriters may have had very successful careers for, literally, decades and may have written several hundred songs, only a fraction of their output makes it into these songbooks. Publishers generally want to produce material that will sell (go figure!)… Continue reading

  • Let’s get digital

    The Special Collections Department  has added three new digital collections to our resources in the past year.  Going digital takes a great deal of effort but makes these collections available to a much larger audience and also makes them more accessible because of their searching capabilities.  The easiest way to get to them is to go from the home page to… Continue reading

  • The movie made me love the book: Jane Austen

    We all have one (at least) of those books: a book that you had to read in school and weren’t that into, but is hailed throughout the English-speaking world as a masterpiece; a book that you wouldn’t read again because it’s now so fraught with memories and expectations. For me, that book was Pride and… Continue reading

  • All in the Game

                           “Many a tear has to fall,                                   but it’s all,                                               in the game.” Aficionados of oldies music might immediately hear a melody when they see those words. The classic pop song, “It’s All in the Game,” topped the charts in 1958, as sung by Tommy Edwards. What most people don’t realize is that… Continue reading

  • An Unfinished Life

    We all start out so damn sure, thinking we’ve got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone,      we’d never leave our bedrooms.   I’ve had a plethora of women in my life expecting children. Some married, some not, some engaged, some first… Continue reading

  • Check out a documentary

    Movie screens, in the winter months, are typically occupied with fantastical epics like 2012 or Avatar and dramatic fare intended to capitalize on the upcoming award season, like Invictus. But a genre of film that is often neglected and forgotten in this season is the documentary. Documentaries have certainly experienced a revitalization in the past few decades. Michael… Continue reading

  • J-O-B

    Because you had a bad day You’re taking one down You sing a sad song just to turn it around You say you don’t know You tell me don’t lie You work at a smile and you go for a ride… With job classes being offered at a plethora of Seattle Public Library branches and… Continue reading

  • Creative expansion: Movies based on short stories

    There’s always another movie coming that’s based on a novel (raising the eternal question, should you read the book or see the movie first?). I’m currently waiting for the December 11 release of the movie The Lovely Bones, based on the novel by Alice Sebold. But it’s also interesting to think about the process of… Continue reading