Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You
It is a grand day for poetry! Every Thing On It, a book of newly-published poems by the great Shel Silverstein was released today. While you wait for the library's copies to be ready to check out (they're coming soon, I promise!), you can reacquaint yourself with Silverstein's classic poetry collections A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. But, you could also take this opportunity to try out some other classic books of silly poetry! These are two of my favorites:
I really developed a taste for this genre of literature when I encountered Edward Lear. The collection The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear includes his most famous "The Owl and the Pussy-cat," but there are many other, lesser-known gems here too. For example, here's an excerpt from from "Mrs Jaypher": "Mrs Jaypher said, 'it's safer / If you've lemons in your head; / First to eat, a pound of meat, / And then to go at once to bed."
Genius, no? This particular collection has the virtue of being large and therefore chock-full of nonsense, and it also has lovely illustrations by John Vernon Lord.
If this isn't enough silliness for you, it's time to turn to another master of the ridiculous, Roald Dahl. Vile Verses contains dozens of silly poems illustrated by a wide variety of artists. Many are favorites from Dahl's novels for children – for example, "Centipede's Favourite Song," from James and the Giant Peach, which has some really excellent first lines: "Once upon a time / When pigs were swine." Once upon a time indeed.
Of, course, the library has many, many other volumes of silly poetry! To see more, try searching the library catalog for the subjects Nonsense verses and Humorous poetry. And don't forget, you can always get reading recommendations tailored to your interests by using our Good Reads service! Just go to the Readers page on the library's website and click on "Looking for a good read?" (Or, you could click on the link over on the right side of this blog!)
Posted by Emily-Jane
The Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academies) has just released a report recommending (among other things) that FDA-approved contraceptives should be on the list of services insurance companies must provide to women without copays. This would mean that for women with health insurance, contraception would be free. Public policy about reproductive matters is always controversial in this country, and there is no doubt that this recommendation will inspire a lively debate. I know you, dear readers, have lots to contribute to this debate already – but if you'd like to join with me in a crash course in birth control history, read on!
Let's begin with the ancient world. Contraception seems like such a very modern thing – many contraceptive methods were invented in the 20th century and it's a little difficult to imagine how folks navigated the challenge of contraception in the distant past. John M. Riddle explores this historical territory in his sharply argued Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Riddle exposes evidence that people throughout western history have known safe and effective means of contraception – from the ancient Egyptians on up. He then goes on to explore the question of how this knowledge was lost during the Middle Ages. Fascinating stuff!
But how were modern contraceptives developed, and how did they become available to people in the United States? In her book Devices and Desires, Andrea Tone explains the history of the technological developments, business innovations, and social changes that brought us the Pill, the IUD, and many other modern contraceptives. Tone lays the groundwork for her history with a discussion of the Comstock Act, which criminalized the production and sale of birth control in 1873, and then details a dizzying array of new products and their consequences: chemical spermicides, antiseptic douches, the Dalkon Shield, vaginal sponges, and many other contraceptive methods and devices. Along the way, she makes sure to explain the human stories that illustrate how contraceptives have affected men and women's lives in the last 140 years.
And, lest we take a view to focused on technology, let's close our course of study with Rickie Solinger's Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America. The book chronicles a wide range of reproductive issues across American history – from slaveholders' breeding schemes to the question of which children are removed from their parents into foster care. Some women, Solinger argues, are encouraged to birth and raise children, while others are impeded from becoming mothers, and this pattern is the result of societal biases about race and class. According to her account, women's own choices are hardly the only meaningful factor in whether, when, and how they have and raise children.
Posted by Emily-Jane
Twice last week, encounters with the trees of other cities caused me to stop and reflect on the beautiful canopy of urban trees here in Portland. First, I flew across the country with a layover in Minneapolis-St. Paul. As the airplane came in for landing over the cities, I was struck by the lush tree cover gracing nearly every street – from the air, I thought to myself, it looks as though the twin cities may have as many trees per acre as Portland! Then last Thursday, I heard story about a recent effort to map every tree in New York’s Central Park – every tree, all 20,000 of them. In my opinion, city dwellers (whether they live in superdense giant cities like New York or smaller garden-filled cities like we have in Oregon) need just this kind of tool to nudge them towards noticing and enjoying trees So today I'm going to tell you about my two favorite Portland- and Oregon-related tree books:
The first is Phyllis C. Reynolds and Elizabeth F. Dimon's amazing Trees of Greater Portland. These two amateur naturalists identified hundreds of different species of trees growing in Portland parks, yards, gardens, and along Portland streets. Their book is a kind of encyclopedia, with trees arranged by scientific name (don't fret, though, if you aren't familiar with all the Latin – there's an index by common name in the back!). Facts and figures about each tree are detailed, together with photographs of the tree as it is found in Portland, with their locations noted. This book is completely fantastic for anyone who is learning to identify tree species, and since tree locations are included, it's also a great way to get to know a neighborhood and its trees.
My other favorite local tree book is Stephen F. Arno and Ramona P. Hammerly's Northwest Trees. This is more of a traditional field guide, focusing on native tree species of the Pacific Northewest. Chapters on each major species of tree are beautifully illustrated with line drawings showing the tree in its native environment, details of leaves, seedpods, cones, and branching patterns. Occasionally, illustrations of animals or plants that typically live in or near the tree are included as well. The book also includes information about trees' growth habit and life cycles, tree ecosystems, tree history and lore, and other miscellaneous facts and figures. It's a very practical book, but so beautifully presented that it's engaging to browse casually as well.
And, if you're feeling jealous of New Yorkers and their fabulous new map, you should know that Portland’s Urban Forestry department has tree walk maps for nearly twenty other parks and neighborhoods (including one, I can’t help but point out, for the neighborhood around the Sellwood-Moreland Library!). So, go for a walk in the city, look at and identify some trees, and enjoy yourself!
Posted by Emily-Jane
As you have no doubt heard or even seen, the Columbia, the Willamette, and many other northwest rivers are very full right now. The Willamette is high, but the Columbia at Vancouver is actually over flood stage. Fortunately, the actual flooding at Vancouver has been slight so far, and little damage is anticipated by forecasters. Floods are awful, dangerous, messy things, and I've been fortunate never to have experienced one personally – but I will admit that growing up, I found floods completely fascinating and always wished we'd have one in Portland. I think the two books below may have helped fuel my early romantic ideas about floods:
First, I blame Tove Jansson, author of the eminently satisfying Moomin series (a childhood favorite of mine). In her wonderful book Moominsummer Madness, the Moomin family are flooded out of their house as a wave sweeps through their valley. But luckily, a new house comes floating by right at their moment of need! Everyone clambers aboard and great relief is felt. However, the house turns out not to be a house at all, but a theater, already occupied by a theater-lover named Emma – and many high jinks ensue as the collection of flood refugees explore floats down the valley, and eventually stages a play written by Emma and Moominpapa.
When I was a little older, I got a second hit of flood-fascination from another novel, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's a complex coming-of-age story about Ruthie and Lucille, two sisters who are raised by a grandmother, two great-aunts, and eventually, their very eccentric aunt Sylvie. I couldn't begin to summarize the whole plot here, but, here's the important part for our subject today: the flood. Although the family home is in a town that is frequently plagued by floods, it is built high up usually stays dry. But one year, the flood waters rise so high that the house does flood, and the family's response is magical! When the water has just begun to invade the first floor of their house, Ruthie and Sylvie dance around in flood water up to their knees. When it rises higher they retreat to the second floor, and use a fishing line to rescue inundated objects from downstairs. Throughout their ordeal, they enjoy the unusual situation rather than worrying about the mess, the damage, and the discomfort.
A common thread in these books is that their characters try earnestly to look at life's challenges with whimsy and optimism, and to find joy wherever they can. I doubt this approach alone would carry me through the challenge of a real-life flood, but I hope that if high water ever reaches me, I'll remember to laugh a little, if I can.
Posted by Emily-Jane
Okay, so the news about Arnold Schwarzenegger's infidelity wasn't all that shocking - though I was surprised it had been kept quiet for so long - but it seems like if you choose the life of celebrity, you also choose the life of "fathering children with household staff", or flashing the paparazzi as you get out of your fancy SUV or punching people in the face. Why is Hollywood so full of scandal? Is it because actors spend so much time pretending to be someone else that they don't know what reality is anymore? Is it the constant pressure on those in the limelight to be perfect, and so they become really, really not perfect? Is it that we are all like this, but most of us are not under the media's microscope and no one really cares about our missteps? Who knows what makes Hollywood the way it is, but it sure is great fodder for the little (or big) gossip in all of us!
So, gossip...if you're like most of the population (whether you'll openly admit it or not), you probably like a little gossip now and again. If that's the case, you probably don't want to read Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, because it's not a little, it's a truckload! Journalist Mark Ebner goes on a veritable gossip-spree in his book, dishing the dirt about Hollywood's most elite as told from former gangster and Paris Hilton buddy Darnell Riley. Riley is described as "a thug from Los Angeles who managed to infiltrate Hollywood's most exclusive circles, exposing the shocking greed and hypocrisy he found among the rich and famous." 
Along the same vein, we've got a travel guide to California's seedy underbelly! Kristan Lawson and Anneli Rufus' California Babylon is (as it's subtitle states) a "guide to sites of scandal, mayhem, and celluloid in the Golden State." As with most guidebooks to California, you'll find information on Disneyland, but instead of it being portrayed as the "greatest place on earth" you'll learn about all of the terrible accidents that have befallen visitors to the park. And the Golden Gate is not described as one of the top tourist attractions in the Bay Area, but as "the world's most popular suicide spot". As for scandal, this book has it's fair share, from Michael Jackson's plastic surgeries to Bugsy Siegel's mobster ties. It's enough to spark the flames of any budding gossip!
If you'd like something with more meat to it, try Matthew J. Kinservik's Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity in Late Eighteenth-Century England. The book jacket explains that "this book tells the story of the bitter feud between the Duchess of Kingston and the actor, Samuel Foote, which resulted in a pair of scandalous trials in London in the revolutionary year of 1776. Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, the duchess's state trial for bigamy and Foote's criminal trial for attempted sodomy engrossed the attention of Londoners, including George III, Parliament, and the nobility." Kinservik, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, has written a thoroughly researched, in-depth and yet still readable book, and he does a good job of capturing the cultural sense of the time.
And so we see people have always been engrossed in the scandals of others. This fascination for gossip is explored in Laura Kipnis book titled How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior. Plus it looks at why people feel the need to behave so badly on the national (and international) stage! Published last year, Kipins uses four recent media sensations as examples including the astronaut-in-diapers Lisa Nowak and the memoir-turned-fiction writer James Frey. She doesn't make any earth-shattering discoveries in her book, but her writing is smart and humorous and tends to hit the nail on the head when looking at why folks are seduced by, and in some cases addicted to, these juicy scandals. And if this isn't enough for you, the library has plenty of other scandalous titles to feed your appetite!
And I just want to say, that even with all the hubbub, Terminator will always be one of my favorite movies of all time!
Posted by Jennifer
The terrifying images from Japan of tsunami waves, the earthquake, and failing nuclear reactors is sobering, saddening, and heartbreaking. How can the country, especially those people in villages that were utterly destroyed, face another day? Just as any country on the Pacific Rim has had its share of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and tsunami waves, Japan has endured through previous tragedy, both natural and man-made. The opportunity to rebuild after utter destruction can even have unexpected positive effects, suggest some. Japan may see an economic boost that it hasn't experienced in decades because of the investments in rebuilding the country. And Lesley Downer points to the Japanese national character that will allow them to rebuild bigger and better than ever, as they have done after past disasters.
An earthquake in September 1923 destroyed Yokohama and most of Tokyo, killing 100,000 to 140,000 in the earthquake and resulting firestorms. Yokohama Burning: the Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II suggests that the ensuing chaos, which resulted in attacks on Koreans living in Japan, the establishment of martial law, and high unemployment, created a situation ripe for the Nationalist fervor that was to grip the country and make it an aggressor in World War II. Joshua Hammer largely focuses on the American perspective in his book, and it is more on the popular end than the scholarly history end of the continuum of disaster narratives. If eyewitness accounts of tragedy are in your reading pile, this should fit in.
Is there any way to say this politely? This country dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, and completely destroyed two cities. The situation at the time may have allowed the US to make that decision, but after seeing the consequences, I don't think any nation of conscience could make the same choice. The suffering of ordinary people in war, especially children, is horrible to witness, but the Japanese comic series Barefoot Gen will make you want to keep reading. Author Keiji Nakazawa was seven and living in Hiroshima with his family in 1945. This series is his semi-autobiographical account of the bombing, his harrowing account of survival in the days after, and the long-term effects the bomb has on his family, his friends, and the country. Despite the many losses Gen suffers, his spirit is resilient, and this series will stay with you long after you finish reading.
On March 20, 1995, five members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released deadly sarin gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and injuring hundreds of others. The extreme nature of this attack on the crowded Metro at rush hour had profound effects on Japanese society, and the nation was stunned by this group of well-educated people who had turned on the country. While the media was obsessed with the cult, its leader Shoko Asahara, and the trials of the perpetrators, the victims and their continued suffering didn't stay in the headlines. The novelist Haruki Murakami wrote Underground : the Tokyo gas attack and the Japanese psyche to report on the attacks and tell the stories of the ordinary victims of the attack. Most of the stories are shared as pure reportage and read like a transcript. Murakami, already a famous novelist in Japan at the time, was able to craft riveting interviews with his subjects. The first part of the book is dedicated to the attack and includes the voices of many people there that day and affected by the attacks, as well as some of the perpetrators. The second part of the book focuses on Aum, now known as Aleph, which still follows Asahara's teachings but has denounced the attacks.
Posted by Kate
As reports continue to come in from Japan, the news moves from bad to worse – not only did Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami take lives, destroy property and natural resources, and render millions of people homeless – it has seriously damaged several of Japan's nuclear power plants. The two worst hit plants, Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Stations, have suffered explosions, loss of power to their cooling systems, and partial meltdown. Radioactive material may continue to be released for months. Sobering news, indeed. Since this is hardly the first time a nuclear power plant has suffered an accident, there are many interesting books illustrating different ways these accidents have affected human and natural history – read on for a hand-picked selection.
The worst nuclear power plant accident in recent memory was in 1986 at reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. The nearby cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat (both within about 10 miles of the plant) were abandoned shortly after the disaster because the whole area was dangerously radioactive. Photographer Robert Polidori visited about 15 years later, and Zones of Exclusion is his record of what remains. Houses, schools, parks, and streets are still there, but they are crumbling, peeling, shifting, sinking, and leaning. Trees grow in city squares, abandoned schoolrooms lie disheveled but nearly intact under a dozen years of radioactive dust, and rusting boats list in the shallow waters at the edge of the River Pripyat. The photographs are grim, but surprisingly beautiful – and they definitely inspired me to think carefully about the long-term, unintended effects of human endeavors.
Nuclear accidents have occurred in the United States too. The most well-known is the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979. At the 25-year anniversary of the accident, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker published Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. This is a serious text, filled with detail and critical analysis. It's not a breezy read, but it is a very thorough and interesting discussion of the accident in political, social, and historical context, with emphasis on the 1970s-era debate about nuclear power, the regulatory structures in place at the time, and of course, the portrayal of the accident and surrounding crisis in the media and popular culture.
Despite the horrors natural and man-made disasters bring, life continues, and people are able to find some hope. For example, the English language edition of the Japanese daily Asahi Shinbun ran a story this morning about two women who delivered healthy baby girls in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture in the hours after the tsunami struck the town. But we also find inspiration and reassurance in the very act of making it through disaster together. Rebecca Solnit explores this territory in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Solnit uses the examples of five historical disasters, and though none of her examples are nuclear accidents, there is no doubt that they illustrate the dynamics that are evident in all disasters. Included are many little-known stories, like the impromptu flotilla of boats that ferried New Yorkers across the river to safety on 9/11, or the woman who set up a kitchen in Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake and fed anyone who would eat, for free. Solnit's core message is that people, as a rule, respond to disaster in the most helpful, community-minded way, and the experience changes us for the better. No one would ask for an earthquake to strike or a nuclear power plant to melt down, but when it does, it brings out the best in most of us.
Posted by Emily-Jane
Newsworthy events naturally inspire speculation, critical analysis, and comparisons to history. The recent pro-democracy protests across the Arab world are no exception – for my part, I've been musing over the question of whether the current wave of revolt is more like 1968, when students and workers took to the streets around the world to protest totalitarian rule and demand an end to the Vietnam War (mostly unsuccessfully) – or whether it's more like 1989, when popular uprisings across Central and Eastern Europe sped the fall of the iron curtain (largely with success). To help me ponder this question, I've found myself consulting these books about the revolts of 1968 and 1989:
The sixties are remembered as a mythical time, which makes understanding the era difficult for people who, like me, are too young to have been present. On the one hand, it wasn't so long ago, so if I want to know about 1968 I can ask people who were there. On the other hand, people who marched and rabble-roused tend to romanticize the era, making it inaccessible and rendering their own accounts suspect. To get a vivid picture, I turned to Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins's 1968: Marching in the Streets. Their richly illustrated chronology gives readers a taste of hundreds of different incidences of protest and challenge to the status quo, including famous events like the US Democratic Convention in August, the student/worker uprising in Paris in May, and the massacre of Mexican students protesting their government's preparations for the Olympic Games in September. But to my mind, the real beauty of the book is its inclusion of less well-known radical actions that took place in 1968 – Japanese protests against the arrival of a nuclear-powered American aircraft carrier in January, Italian students' struggle to govern their universities in March, a strike for equal pay for equal work by women working at a Ford plant in Dagenham, UK in June, and many more.
For a more detailed narrative account of the tumult around the world during 1968, take a look at Mark Kurlansky's 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. Kurlansky discusses, among other things, how mass media came into its own during 1968 with the widespread availability of live television news – a development that changed the how people in one part of the world were able to understand events on the ground thousands of miles away. This book also takes the global scope of the story of 1968 seriously, making it more eye-opening and relevant than I expected at first glance.
1989 is only a bit more than 20 years ago, so comprehensive narratives of the whole scope of the revolutions and rebellions that began in that year are harder to come by. To get you started, I recommend The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Michael Meyer, Newsweek's Berlin bureau chief at the time, argues that the fall of the Wall and the consequent melting of the iron curtain had little to do with American influence. Instead, he uses interviews with politicians, bureaucrats and activists from around the Eastern Bloc to show how popular uprisings in several countries influenced each other in a complex pattern. The book is short and readable, but packed with thought-provoking detail.
Posted by Emily-Jane
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American cheesemakers have a problem: many soft cheeses, some of which have a short aging period, are best made with raw milk (connoisseurs say it has better flavor notes), but the Food and Drug Administration requires that cheeses aged less than 60 days be made with pasteurized milk. And now, the FDA is considering tightening the regulations for raw milk cheeses. The 60-day rule dates from the 1940s, and at least some dairy scientists say its not based on real science, but the question of how to ensure that cheeses are produced safely is a tricky one.
Safety rules regulate other foods too – bread, eggs, canned goods, nuts, margarine, and many more. But it was not always so. Until a hundred or so years ago, there were no regulations determining what ingredients could be used, what safety protocols were to be followed, or what names foods could be sold under. But perhaps worse than the liberties food producers might take with their products was the free-ranging anxieties people suffered under about the safety of their comestibles. In Sacred Cow, Mad Cow, Madeleine Ferrières examines the social history of the public’s irrational fears about food, from medieval France right through to early 20th century Chicago. The book is sobering, amusing, and intriguing all at the same time.
For those of you who would rather explore the horrors of unsafe food production facilities and contaminated or adulterated food in fictional form, you will want to examine (or perhaps revisit!) Upton Sinclair's classic, The Jungle. Sinclair intended the novel to be an exposé of the exploitation of factory workers, but the book became a best-seller through the attention it received for exposing unsavory food-production practices. And my are they unsavory! Safety rules so lax that meat-packing workers fall into rendering vats and become incorporated with the lard, grocery stores in poor neighborhoods selling watered-down milk mixed with formaldehyde, and myriad other awful examples. The Jungle is a beautiful, compelling read, though, despite the gross-out factor and the inherent desperation of the plot. (If you like comics, be sure to check out Peter Kuper's excellent graphic novel adaptation.)
But, maybe you're not into reading about the details of unsafe food. Perhaps news stories about FDA regulations for cheese just make you want to read about delicious cheese? I have some suggestions! Mastering Cheese is like a textbook for how to be a more effective cheese lover. Max McCalman and David Gibbons take readers step-by-step through cheese history and cheesemaking, cheese traditions on family tables and in restaurants, matching cheeses with wine and beer, and many other important subjects in cheese education. And of course, they provide a whirlwind tour of the great cheese styles of the world. Yum.
And if you'd like a more close-to-home cheese tour, be sure to consult Tami Parr's Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest. Although it is little more than an atlas of cheesemakers around our region, the brief stories about each business are both interesting and informative.
Posted by Emily-Jane
As a reference librarian, I am often asked to help locate statistical data. How prevalent is childhood obesity, how many people live in rural areas in the U.S., is it really true that Portland has more bicycle traffic than other cities? I love these kinds of questions, but there is a considerable challenge in answering them: for one thing, it often takes statisticians a long time to report their data. And no wonder, really. This year the U.S. Census Bureau counted 308,745,508 people residing in the United States (3,831,074 in Oregon), and even with computers to speed the calculation, that's a lot of arithmetic! But, ever-stalwart, they released this first piece of Census 2010 data last week, a mere 265 days after Census Day.
The decennial census is a powerful tool for demographers, historians, sociologists, economists, and other planners and analyzers. Historian Margo J. Anderson shows in her book The American Census: A Social History that the census's influence has been both wide and deep – census data were used to plan military strategy during the Civil War, to analyze the crisis of the Great Depression, to map out "white flight" during the 1950s and 1960s, and to track, understand, and plan for numerous other societal concerns. Along the way, Anderson explains the practicalities of census-taking and census-counting (they've changed a lot over the years!). This combination of technical explication and socio-historical analysis is highly successful – with her engaging approach and clear writing style, Anderson makes this supposedly dull topic shine.
One of the big things the U.S. Census chronicles is the migration of people from place to place. To get a better view on the scope of these migrations, check out The Settling of North America, an atlas with maps, illustrations, and brief essays outlining the movements of peoples into and around the North American continent from the last great Ice Age to the present day. It's very handy if you want to quantify and contextualize important social changes – the migration of people from Asia to the Americas at the end of the Ice Age, the impact of the African slave trade on the Americas, the arrival of refugees from the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, the evacuation of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, and dozens of others.
The Economics of Population: Classic Writings collects influential essays from philosopher-economists (the two fields used to be more closely linked than they are now) going back to the 18th century. Several interesting debates are illuminated – for example, the battle of ideas between British intellectuals William Godwin and Thomas Malthus. Godwin posited that when given the room to act autonomously, people’s natural capacity for reason will help them further community interests. Malthus, on the other hand, argued that population pressures were paramount – in times of plenty, populations increase, which then strains available resources, a cycle which ultimately results in misery and want. Here’s where it gets interesting (and statistics-ish) – Godwin countered that Malthus’s analysis was based on flawed data concerning population increases in the American colonies. In order for Malthus’s claims to be valid, each family would need to produce eight children, which, Godwin stated, wasn't actually happening. Malthus went on to be hugely influential to economists, philosophers, sociologists, and other thinkers, regardless of this dispute, and his ideas have helped shape government economic policy around the world. So, it’s quite interesting to get a view on the original debate.
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For those of you who are looking for even more great reading about population, get yourself on the (regrettably quite long) hold list for Isabel Wilkerson's critically acclaimed The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Wilkerson's history of the Great Black Migration of the 20th century is organized around the stories of three compelling individuals who migrated to try to escape the pressures of institutionalized racism in the South. The obstacles they faced, the adjustments they made, and the ways in which their migration changed them sheds light on the larger story of one of the greatest population shifts in American history.
Or, if you're data-hungry and want to geek out with some counts, percentages, and statistical comparisons, I highly recommend the U.S. Census Bureau's super-handy annual volume, the Statistical Abstract of the United States. It collects statistical data on nearly every topic you can think of, from government and private sources. The book version is in every Multnomah County Library location, but if you're in a hurry or just don't favor the printed page for this sort of information, you can always look at the online version.
Take a look at the details of the first release from the 2010 Census, while you're at it. It's pretty interesting! And be sure to ask a librarian if you'd like help with your statistical investigations (or indeed, if you'd like help with anything).
Posted by Emily-Jane
The Drama and Pain of the Theatre
After postponed previews, technical problems, and some creative challenges, speculation is swirling that the multi-million dollar production of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will be canceled, a claim the producers vehemently deny. More people are predicting the demise of the show after one of the costumed Spider-Man stunt doubles fell into the orchestra pit at the climax of the show. The actor is recuperating, but the next day's shows were canceled to implement greater safety measures.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark wouldn't be the first Broadway musical to flop in grand style. Producing a show is a collaboration between hundreds of people and can quickly go wrong. Sometimes, the vision of the writers, producers, and director just doesn't find an audience. And sometimes, conflicts between the money men and the creative people can derail a production before it even has a chance to leave the station. Lucky for us, we have Ken Mandelbaum to tell us the stories of a couple hundred Broadway flops in his book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. Take the shows described here as a cautionary tale, or just snicker at the the failures of others. Carrie: the Musical? Really?
Maybe reading Larry Stempel's history of Broadway will help us put Carrie: the Musical into context. Showtime: a history of the Broadway Musical Theater leaves nothing out, beginning with the mid-1800s early musicals (including an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin), follows up with vaudeville, and takes us all the way to the present-day. This comprehensive tome--826 pages!--will satisfy the most hard core fan of musicals but could also inspire those who have a more casual interest to start looking into our collection of musical scores on CD.
I was a theater kid. I got some respectably big roles in my school productions from elementary up through high school and I even joined the cast of a few community theater productions in my hometown. I heard about such things as "going to drama camp" and "working in summer stock", but that was an imaginary universe as far as I was concerned. I am going to read Mickey Rapkin's Theater Geek: the Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp and pretend that I am back in high school and experiencing all the drama of a camp full of teenage divas. Wait--I'm not so sure I want that anymore. I'll just enjoy the joys and heartbreak of these campers on their own terms.
For the ultimate in online Broadway research, check out the Internet Broadway Database at ibdb.com. Modeled after the Internet Movie Database, it collects a growing number of performers, producers, directors, shows, and opening night production credits for shows where available for performances going back to the beginning of Broadway.
Posted by Kate
One interesting feature of the media coverage of Wikileaks's release of a quarter of a million secret U.S. diplomatic cables, I think, is that it's made us all stop to think about what diplomatic cables are, how they work, and why they're important to our political history and future. For example, NPR's All Things Considered had a story about why cables are called "cables," and Morning Edition featured an interview with former ambassador Mark Lagon about the art and craft of composing a really good diplomatic cable.
This led me to wonder, how did the introduction of telegraphy change diplomacy? David Paull Nickles examines this very question in his history Under the Wire, and not surprisingly, one of the conclusions he comes to is that when diplomats began using telegrams regularly, the speed of their communications forced a quickening of the pace in other areas of diplomatic work. This wasn't always to the good – Nickles points out that delay in getting messages from place to place (as was both possible and expected when messages had to be physically conveyed) could be a tool for diplomats, allowing them to prevent, or alternately to provoke conflict. Once telegrams were in wide use, this tool was no longer available. Old-school diplomats complained about this, and they also expressed widespread frustration at the growth of centralization and bureaucracy that the telegraph inspired. Once cables were zipping all over the globe, it just wasn't possible to kick back and spend the length of one's foreign posting in aristocratic leisure.
One cable that had tremendous influence on world events has gone down in history under the moniker "The Zimmermann Telegram." In the beginning of 1917 it was clear to all that the Great War was at something of an impasse. The opposing sides were so well matched that neither could budge the other without some kind of unexpected advantage. Britain's greatest hope was that they could convince the United States to join the war, but President Wilson was staunchly neutral. How to change his mind? When British Naval Intelligence intercepted a German diplomatic cable addressed to the government of Mexico, they saw their chance. The cable proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico, and offered support to a possible Mexican war against the U.S., to reclaim territories lost to the United States during the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. The British proceeded to decipher the cable, convey its contents to U.S. diplomats, and convince Wilson to support a declaration of war against Germany and its allies – all without revealing to the Germans that their code had been broken. Eminent popular historian Barbara Tuchman tells the whole story in beautiful, clear prose and with riveting detail in her book The Zimmermann Telegram.
If you'd like to learn more about the cables released by Wikileaks, or read news stories about the controversies surrounding them, there's lots to wade through. You might start at one of the news organizations that received the cables directly from Wikileaks: the British newspaper The Guardian, the French newspaper Le Monde, the New York Times, Spain's El País, or the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Multnomah County Library's guide to research on conflict and terrorism has further recommendations for information about the leaked cables.
Posted by Emily-Jane
I am a huge fan of berries. I love the familiar ones that are available in the supermarket (blueberries, strawberries, blackberries), I will go out of my way for the unusual varieties (gooseberries, currants, tayberries), and especially I adore the berries that grow wild in our part of the northwest (huckleberries, juneberries, thimbleberries). And I feel quite smug about eating berries as often as I can get them, because the more scientists study their health effects, the more they agree that berries are superfreaking good for us. If you are also beloved of the berry, these books are for you; if you aren't yet converted, they may do the trick!
It's completely possible to eat berries right off the vine or bush, or directly out of the carton. They don't usually require a lot of dressing-up to make them palatable – but there are so many delicious ways to cook with berries that it is worth trying a few recipes! The Pacific Northwest Berry Book should give you a good start. Bob Krumm and James Krumm have divided their book into chapters for each type of berry – familiar friends like blackberries and Oregon grape, and lesser-known (or less-frequently-eaten) species such as chokecherry, salal, and blackcap raspberry. Each chapter includes a guide to identifying the berry in question and harvesting it, and of course, recipes both sweet and savory. Yummy.
Wild Berries of the West, by Betty B. Derig and Margaret C. Fuller, is a great place to turn if you want a fully-fledged field guide to berries. Scientific and ethnobotanical information is provided about each berry, together with color photographs to aid in plant identification, and a bit of advice about using the plants in the garden. Some of the ethnobotanical information is particularly interesting – did you know, for example, that Oregon grape wood was (and perhaps still is) traditionally used by Native Americans as a yellow dyestuff?
Although there is no doubt that the Pacific Northwest is a completely berry-rific-est place, there are many famous varieties of berry from other parts of the world, some of which figure greatly in literature and folklore, like mulberries, black currants, and lingonberries. These three can all be grown here; you might find them at the farmer's market here in the Willamette Valley. Then again, you might have to grow your own! But never fear, Lee Reich can show you the ropes. He introduces more than 20 exotic-seeming fruits (many of them berries) that can be grown in temperate climates in Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden. This book is kept in the fruit gardening section, and it does contain a lot of information for gardeners (and gardening daydreamers), but Reich doesn't stop there – he also includes a nice history and brief ethnobotany of each fruit he discusses. So even if you have no garden and/or want never to be a gardener, Uncommon Fruits is a pretty engaging read.
Posted by Emily-Jane
This is old news by now, but i'm so happy the San Francisco Giants won the world series...and the crowd goes wild! I am unquestionably a sports fan. I grew up in a football family (Go Niners!) and having my old hometown baseball team win their first ever World Series championship is super exciting. For me, there's nothing like rooting your team on to victory (or defeat). And I'm an equal opportunity sports fan, I enjoy watching everything from the Olympics, to the Super Bowl, to the Masters. But what I enjoy most is high school sports and cheering on my new hometown team, the Roosevelt Rough Riders (Go Riders!). My daughter and I attend every home game we can. So far this year we've cheered on the soccer, football, and volleyball teams. We bring our black and yellow Rough Rider pom-poms and have a blast!
Speaking of local teams, Woodburn High School’s soccer team is chronicled in the highly engrossing book, The Boys From Little Mexico by Steve Wilson. At the time Wilson wrote this book, Woodburn High School's Bulldogs (or Los Perros) had consecutively been to the OSAA soccer playoffs more than any other team, and yet had never won. Wilson follows the players, their coach, and their 2005 season, painting a picture of a group of strong young men who overcome plenty of obstacles (being an all Hispanic team in Oregon, for instance, with eight undocumented players and living in a school district dealing with one of Oregon's highest child poverty rates) to play really awesome soccer. I'm not saying it has a movie-script ending, but it is a great book for high school sports fans here in Oregon!
Wilson's book emphasizes that high school sports teams are just tiny microcosms of the communities they represent. And for good or bad, they deal with the same issues the larger community deals with, such as race and politics. Along those lines, another book I would recommend is Carry the Rock by veteran sportswriter Jay Jennings. This story takes place in Little Rock, Arkansas with the Little Rock Central High School's football team. The Tigers, coached until 2010 by the legendary Bernie Cox, are a group of young men, both black and white, still dealing with the complex issues that lead to the Little Rock Nine in 1957. Jennings does an excellent job writing much more than just a sports book, including history, humor, and drama.
Speaking of drama, More than a Game is a documentary that follows a group of five young basketball players from their childhood through winning national acclaim as part of the St. Vincent-St. Mary Fighting Irish high school basketball team. There is nothing quite like team sports, in my opinion, and the bond you form as you struggle to compete and win - you become like family to one another. Co-written and directed by Kristopher Belman, this story looks at five inner-city youths in Akron, OH as they work together, overcome obstacles and follow their passion for basketball to win the high school national championship! You can watch an inspiring trailer here.
Just looking at the book-jackets and DVD cover for this post is inspiring...man, I love sports!
Posted by Jennifer
When I think of amber, I usually think of the first grown-up piece of jewelry I bought with my own money, a crab brooch with a Baltic amber body. I remember knowing it was a frivolous purchase, especially considering how empty my pockets were, but also being thrilled that I owned something so beautiful and prehistoric. My amber crab doesn't have any "inclusions," the insects, plants, and other creatures trapped in wood resin before it fossilizes into amber. The addition of an insect in a piece of amber can dramatically increase its value, but some people are interested in these inclusions for more than their aesthetic value. Scientists in India recently discovered a large cache of 50-million-year-old amber that includes over 700 species of insects similar to those found in Europe and Asia from the same period. "So what?" you say? Well, what they had been expecting were unique species that evolved over the 100 million years that the Indian subcontinent was floating around, unconnected to any other landmass. What they got does not indicate that the subcontinent was as isolated as previously thought. And they also got lots and lots of bugs in their little amber coffins.
One of the reasons I don't have amber with inclusions is I can't really stomach having the dying moments of an insect crystallized in yellow fossilized goo bouncing around on a pendant hanging next to my heart. I don't care for insects much, but let me offer you some choice quotes from Amber: The Natural Time Capsule to make my point about the gruesomeness: "Some flies and harvestmen are able to break off their legs to enable their escape. Isolated legs are often seen in amber, as well as flies with some of their legs nearby," and "Other insects are incomplete and their struggle on the surface of the resin may have brought them to the attention of larger animals looking for a meal [emphasis all mine]." My squeamishness aside, if you want amber with inclusions of insects struggling so hard they created concentric circles in the resin pooling over them in their death throes, I won't stop you. And Andrew Ross's slim book would be a great place to start to get the basic facts about amber and the creatures you can find there. It serves as a field guide to identifying the dead insects you might find in your amber. Just don't go plucking the legs off any houseflies in a dramatic reenactment of a slow insect death.
You might remember amber as the source of dinosaur DNA that is used to recreate the fearsome creatures to predictably disastrous effect in the blockbuster movie Jurassic Park. Well, it's not going to happen that way, kids. But if anyone is going to extract the DNA in amber in pursuit of knowledge, it's George Poinar and his colleagues. Though there is some dispute about the ability of scientists to obtain legitimate DNA samples from ancient specimens trapped in amber, Poinar and his wife, Roberta Poinar are experts in identifying specimens encased in amber. In The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World, they use the specimens from a rich supply of amber from the Dominican Republic to reconstruct the ancient ecosystem that existed there millions of years ago. Don't skip the Prologue--there's a particularly grisly description of the last moments of a small bee: "...death came in seconds as viscous liquid seeped over the breathing pores, wrapping a mantle of gold around its victim." Lots of illustrations, photographs and solid writing make what could be very dry stuff a surprisingly entertaining read.
Nazis, treasure hunters, the mysterious disappearance of an incalculable treasure--aren't these three things enough to sell you on this book before I even describe it? How about Cold War propaganda, Czars and Czarinas, and triumph over bureaucratic gatekeepers? A pair of investigative reporters, Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy dig deeper in this book than any other previous storytellers to unearth what happened to The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure. The Amber Room was commissioned by Frederick I of Prussia in 1701. The intricately constructed panels were an unparalleled masterpiece that was sent as a gift to Peter the Great and was later installed in the Catherine Palace. During World War II, an attempt was made to conceal the too-fragile-to-move panels, but the international renown of the spectacular treasure made that impossible. The Nazis looted the palace in 1941, including the Amber Room, and installed the panels in Königsberg as war spoils. They then disappeared in the chaos at the war's end. The authors tell a gripping tale of their quest to discover the truth and the obstacles they encounter on the way. They eventually come to a conclusion that may be the one conclusion the Russian government doesn't want them to draw.
Posted by Kate
