Yes, I'm going to explain how to do that in one blog post. Just kidding.
New Jersey's own Robert Greenberg is the entertaining lecturer of the music appreciation course with that name. That is, How to Listen and Understand Great Music, which BHPL has in its nonfiction audiobook collection. New Jersey comes up during a discussion of Lorenzo Da Ponte, the Venetian who wrote the libretti (a.k.a. the lyrics) for Mozart's operas. In 1805 Da Ponte ran a grocery store in Elizabeth of all places, before becoming Columbia University's first professor of Italian literature.
Dr. Greenberg tells funny and illuminating stories about composers, but what I liked best was learning about A) opera - which I thought I would have to suffer through - and B) the various forms of pieces (for example, concertos, oratorios, fugues), and how they came about. You get to hear a little of each selection, which is a good way to figure out what you'd enjoy listening to on your own in full later.
This audiobook course is located at BHPL at CD AUDIO 780.9 GRE - scan the walls for a pink flamingo to find the nonfiction audiobooks. Robert Greenberg has also put a version of the course in printed form with the book "How to Listen to Great Music: a Guide to Its History, Culture and Heart". For more reviews of Teaching Company courses that you can borrow from the library: Museum Masterpieces: the Met; The Story of Human Language; and a list of courses that BHPL owns.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Once Upon a Time . . .
The artist Bea Tobolewski is putting the finishing touches on the children's room.
The official reopening was on November 19. This dog from the Mount Pleasant Animal Shelter was one of the guests present.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
If you like hard-boiled mysteries...
I took a sharp detour from reading my usual cozy mystery genre to venture into the dark underbelly of crime, violent characters, urban decay and deceitful treachery of the noir genre. The 39th installment in the Spenser series by the late Robert B. Parker, Sixkill introduces Zebulon Sixkill, an American Indian whom Spenser takes on as an apprentice. Parker's Spenser series is always dependably engrossing and well-written and Sixkill will not disappoint fans.
Next, I read George Pelecanos' The Cut, the first in a new series featuring investigator Spero Lucas. Spero is an Iraq vet and D.C. native who works for a local lawyer and takes his own cases recovering lost property. Fans of TV's the Wire and Treme, written by Pelecanos, will know to expect a very dark view of humanity and lots of heart-wrenching violence. Despite the fact that I don't generally read or particularly like violent novels, The Cut held my attention and I finished it despite an incredibly graphic and disturbing murder scene which made me want to quit reading altogether. Fans of Michael Connelly will like Pelecanos' books. Washington, DC natives will recognize the local landmarks, schools, restaurants and haunts that only natives are familiar with. This is not the DC of people who live in Georgetown and the northwest section of Northwest and who come and go with political jobs. It's the DC of rabid Redskins fans and people who know how to get around without ever using the Beltway.
Related websites:
George Pelecanos
Robert B. Parker
Next, I read George Pelecanos' The Cut, the first in a new series featuring investigator Spero Lucas. Spero is an Iraq vet and D.C. native who works for a local lawyer and takes his own cases recovering lost property. Fans of TV's the Wire and Treme, written by Pelecanos, will know to expect a very dark view of humanity and lots of heart-wrenching violence. Despite the fact that I don't generally read or particularly like violent novels, The Cut held my attention and I finished it despite an incredibly graphic and disturbing murder scene which made me want to quit reading altogether. Fans of Michael Connelly will like Pelecanos' books. Washington, DC natives will recognize the local landmarks, schools, restaurants and haunts that only natives are familiar with. This is not the DC of people who live in Georgetown and the northwest section of Northwest and who come and go with political jobs. It's the DC of rabid Redskins fans and people who know how to get around without ever using the Beltway.
Related websites:
George Pelecanos
Robert B. Parker
Friday, December 2, 2011
Born on a Blue Day
The Friday Morning Book Group just discussed Daniel Tammet's Born on a Blue Day, inside the extraordinary mind of an autistic savant, a memoir which I reviewed on this blog when I first read it in 2007.
Mr. Tammet begins his memoir,
"I was born on January 31, 1979 -- a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing."..." I have a rare condition known as savant syndrome, little known before its portrayal by actor Dustin Hoffman in the Oscar-winning 1988 film Rain Man. Like Hoffman's character, Raymond Babbitt, I have an almost obsessive need for order and routine which affects virtually every aspect of my life."
The author's condition has been studied by autism experts world wide and because he is able to fully express what it feels like to be him, his participation in research studies is especially valuable and likewise, his memoir gives a rare glimpse into the mind of a person with synesthesia, Aspergers and savant syndrome.
The book led to a very lively discussion about normal brain function, and cases like Daniel's which resulted in the ability to learn a new language in a week, recite Pi for hours on end to the umpty-umpth (22,514) digit, and do complex mathematical calculations quickly in his head. We discussed whether he might be a fraud, or just memorizing things by using mnemonic tricks as described in Moonwalking with Einstein, the art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer. Having seen Tammet on video clips of his TV appearances, most agreed that he did not appear autistic at all, but felt that his condition is genuine.
Mr. Tammet begins his memoir,
"I was born on January 31, 1979 -- a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing."..." I have a rare condition known as savant syndrome, little known before its portrayal by actor Dustin Hoffman in the Oscar-winning 1988 film Rain Man. Like Hoffman's character, Raymond Babbitt, I have an almost obsessive need for order and routine which affects virtually every aspect of my life."
The author's condition has been studied by autism experts world wide and because he is able to fully express what it feels like to be him, his participation in research studies is especially valuable and likewise, his memoir gives a rare glimpse into the mind of a person with synesthesia, Aspergers and savant syndrome.
The book led to a very lively discussion about normal brain function, and cases like Daniel's which resulted in the ability to learn a new language in a week, recite Pi for hours on end to the umpty-umpth (22,514) digit, and do complex mathematical calculations quickly in his head. We discussed whether he might be a fraud, or just memorizing things by using mnemonic tricks as described in Moonwalking with Einstein, the art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer. Having seen Tammet on video clips of his TV appearances, most agreed that he did not appear autistic at all, but felt that his condition is genuine.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Museum Masterpieces: the Met
The library has a wonderful Teaching Company course on DVD that you can borrow called Museum Masterpieces: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are 24 half hour lectures, but you can skip around if you like.
My favorite part was learning about the historical connections between works of art in the Museum. An amazing engraved helmet, the "burgonet with falling buffe" (above) is on display in the Department of Arms and Armor. The helmet was given to the Medici court in Florence sometime in the 16th century. The helmet appears in a portrait of Cosimo II de Medici, which the Met web site says is not on display - another reason to check out the DVDs. The lectures will also give you a peek at famous prints, photographs and costumes usually not on display.
The period rooms you can wander around in (like the bedroom from the Sagredo Palace in Venice, above) have always been my favorite part of the Met. The DVDs showed me several rooms I had never come across before, including the Verplanck Room in the American Wing. The Verplanck Room's furniture is from the home Daniel Verplanck grew up in. Daniel's childhood portrait by John Singleton Copley is also at the Met, and the view in the background is that of his family's home in Fishkill-on-Hudson. The walls and cornice of the room were taken from another house in the Hudson River Valley, so the portrait's background gives you an idea of what the view through the room's windows may have been like.
My favorite part was learning about the historical connections between works of art in the Museum. An amazing engraved helmet, the "burgonet with falling buffe" (above) is on display in the Department of Arms and Armor. The helmet was given to the Medici court in Florence sometime in the 16th century. The helmet appears in a portrait of Cosimo II de Medici, which the Met web site says is not on display - another reason to check out the DVDs. The lectures will also give you a peek at famous prints, photographs and costumes usually not on display.
The period rooms you can wander around in (like the bedroom from the Sagredo Palace in Venice, above) have always been my favorite part of the Met. The DVDs showed me several rooms I had never come across before, including the Verplanck Room in the American Wing. The Verplanck Room's furniture is from the home Daniel Verplanck grew up in. Daniel's childhood portrait by John Singleton Copley is also at the Met, and the view in the background is that of his family's home in Fishkill-on-Hudson. The walls and cornice of the room were taken from another house in the Hudson River Valley, so the portrait's background gives you an idea of what the view through the room's windows may have been like.
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