Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Thanksgiving Post

Every Thanksgiving for some years now, we have posted Thanksgiving cooking advice, jokes and a very long shaggy dog story, er shaggy turkey story? Here is the link to last years Thanksgiving post:
http://bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com/2013/11/which-side-of-turkey-has-most-feathers.html

In the interest of new blog content, here is an even newer bit to help our faithful blog readers and library patrons get in the holiday spirit: a Thankgiving poem from Granger's poetry database.

Poem: Thanksgiving Wishes
Author: Arthur Guiterman (1871–1943)



 I wish you all that pen and ink

—Could write, and then some more!
I hope you cannot even think
—Of half you're thankful for.
5
I hope your table holds a wealth
—Of prime Thanksgiving fare,
And Love and Peace and Joy and Health
—Will all be seated there.
I trust your guests will all be bright,
10
—But none of them too wise,
And each will bring an appetite
—For mince or pumpkin pies.
I hope the fowls will all be fat,
—The cider sweet to quaff,
15
And when you snap a Wishbone, that
—You'll win the larger half!

 MLA
Guiterman, Arthur. “Thanksgiving Wishes.” Columbia Granger's World of Poetry Online. 2014. Columbia University Press. 22 Nov. 2014.

To find this and 103  other full-text poems with the word "Thanksgiving' in the title, Berkeley Heights patrons can search our 'Columbia Granger's World of Poetry database.' All BHPL databases are linked to our 'Databases and Articles' page. Have your library card barcode handy to authenticate yourself so you can use Granger's and dozens of our other online research resources.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Learn Something New from the Teaching Company at the Library

The Teaching Company makes instructional DVD's and CD sets called "Great Courses' which you can borrow from the Berkeley Heights Public Library. These sets cover a variety of historical and artistic topics with  lectures from well-known university professors. You can find them by typing 'Teaching Company' or 'Great Courses' into the library catalog. You can find and read Ellen's blog posts about the courses she listened to and watched by using the same keywords in the blog's search box. Here is a sample of three of Ellen's reviews with links to the full reviews:

Listen & Learn (first posted Thursday, July 3, 2008)
Do you ever carelessly say "gonna" instead of "going to"? That's the way language has been changing and making new words for millennia. The Indo-European root words for "go" and "carry" (words that sounded something like "bear" and "ink") ran together to become the English word "bring". There also used to be a word that meant "repeatedly" that's now just the suffix "le" in English; it's the difference between dab and dabble, drip and dribble.
I learned this from 'The Story of Human Language,' a Teaching Company course on CD which is a series of lectures by linguist John McWhorter. The Berkeley Heights Public Library has over 200 courses, on CD, DVD and audiocassette tapes by the Teaching Company and Recorded Book's Modern Scholar.
Posted by Ellen at 7/03/2008 10:31:00 AM

How to Listen and Understand Great Music (First posted Tuesday, December 13, 2011)
New Jersey's own Robert Greenberg is the entertaining lecturer of the music appreciation course with that name 'How to Listen and Understand Great Music,' which BHPL has in its nonfiction audiobook collection. Dr. Greenberg tells funny and illuminating stories about composers. 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.
Posted by Ellen at 12/13/2011 11:28:00 AM

Museum Masterpieces: the Met  (First posted Thursday, December 1, 2011)
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.
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"  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.
Posted by Ellen at 12/01/2011 11:07:00 AM
Flamingo Signage