Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You
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
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
Slate magazine has a wonderful section called the Explainer that answers "your questions about the news," and in light of Mark David Chapman's recent parole hearing (John Lennon's assassin), they published information on how to pass a parole board interview. Now hopefully most of us will never need this kind of counsel, but if you're anything like me (perhaps due to way too much television as a child, or being a librarian, or a combination of the two) I'm always interested in any kind of useful facts I can get my hands on...because one never knows when one might end up in jail and facing a parole board. Right? This coupled with the fact that we have a program coming to Central Library this month on the role prisons serve in our country and about alternatives to incarceration, got me thinking about the prison system in America and what it means to be incarcerated.
If this is a topic that also interests you, we have a variety of resources that look at the history of the U.S. prison system. We have some books that are very thorough and academic, such as Setphen Cox's The Big House, but the one I found most interesting and easy to read was Locked Up by Lauara B. Edge. She does a good job presenting the facts in an appealing manner, with bold section headings, attractive color schemes, images, quotes, photographs and a useful time-line in the back. And the information is well researched and solid.
Sometimes, I find the best way to really explore something is through the art it generates, the images and sounds a particular place or situation gives birth to. I remember recommending a work that looked at the art created by prisoners of the Japanese internment camps a while back. I am doing the same here. Prison/Culture is a book that explores the experience of incarceration through art. The editor Sharon Bliss and others have pulled together artwork, created mostly by inmates, that is varied, beautiful and heartbreaking. Along these lines, I would also recommend the zine Tenacious: Art and Writing from Women in Prison, which is filled with stories, drawings, and poetry from women incarcerated all over the country.
And recently a friend and fellow librarian recommended a new fiction book, aimed at teen audiences, that looks at imprisonment. Incarceron looks at the future of prisons - prisons unlike you or I could imagine. The Incarceron prison is a sentient being, morphing and responding to situations, and to those trapped inside. The author, Catherine Fisher, tells the story of Finn, an inmate of Incarceron and Claudia, the warden's daughter. It has a complex plot that not only follows the struggle of these two to meet one another, but also examines the philosophy of imprisonment. I mentioned earlier that this book was written with teens in mind, but honestly, the teen fiction genre is putting out some of the most engaging reads out there (Hunger Games anyone?!). I'd recommend giving it a try!
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Posted by Jennifer
Though it is sometimes difficult for me to believe (or remember), I was once a teenage girl. And it was H-A-R-D! You've got your glossy magazines, TV programs and movie screens filled with images of unrealistically beautiful women, you've got your real-life mean popular girls with their little cliques, and you've got your raging hormones that turn every little thing into a huge drama. But there are folks out there who remember and care and work very hard to make life a little easier for adolescent girls. Take for example, Rachel Simmons who - among many other things - has started a Girls Leadership Institute that hosts a summer camp in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. The point of this camp? To teach young women about self-awareness, self-expression and that as one attendee put it, "social status has no effect on who you are". Basically, they learn to be true to themselves. I wish I had been friends with Rachel back when we were both teenagers, maybe together we could have told those mean girls to buzz off!
Rachel Simmons is a super star for all she's doing, and she is also the author of a couple great books on the subject of girls growing up in the real world. Her first book, Odd Girl Out, discusses how even the "small things" can be devastating to a growing girl's self-esteem. We all hear about bullying - usually involving boys and some form of physical violence - but we rarely hear and talk about the girls, and the damage they can do with their silent aggression. This is the conversation Simmons aims to start, and she also has tips for parents and teachers who are dealing with this problem. Some of the stories in this book are heartbreaking, and some hit very close to home, for me anyway. Simmons herself was the victim of girls' aggression and thought at the time she was the only one. This book helps all of us ladies know that we are not alone.
Having lived through it myself, and with a young daughter who will one day have to endure adolescence, I am fascinated by, and more than a little bit worried about, what it means to be a teenage girl. Stephen Hinshaw is a psychologist and author who also worries about the pressures these young girls face. His book, The Triple Bind discusses this and gives his solutions to what he sees as the bind today's girls find themselves in: being a perfect girl (pretty, nurturing and nice), while simultaneously excelling in all the traditional "boy" expectations (smart, athletic and successful). Hinshaw seems to genuinely care, and the studies he has conducted shed serious light on this troubling topic. One solution he mentions again and again is to build resilience in these young ladies by giving them the opportunity to connect to a broader and deeper purpose, become a part of a community, and take action!
Personally, I'm also a big proponent of good old-fashioned confidence building. And what better way to do that than showing girls how to be rock stars! So let's here it for Portland's own Rock 'N' Roll Camp for Girls (now a phenomenon spreading all over the world)! Girls Rock! is a documentary by Shane King and Arne Johnson that gives you an insiders look into Rock 'N' Roll Camp while you follow three young girls as they form a band, learn an instrument, write their own songs, and perform to a sold out crowd. You can see a trailer of it here. Much like the work of Rachel Simmons, this camp aims to teach girls that's it's okay to be exactly who you are...and why not bang on some drums while you're at it! And for those of you who aren't between the ages of 8-17, but who wish, wish, wish there had been a Rock 'N' Roll camp for you when you were young, they have a Ladies Rock Camp too!
Posted by Jennifer
I am a child of the burbs. I grew up in a three bedroom, one bath house that was an exact replica of the houses to the left and right of it, only flip-flopped back and forth. We had to drive to the grocery store and my mom commuted to work, but we all had sidewalks, and garages, and fenced backyards. It was the world as I knew it and I loved it. Now I'm an urban dweller, we don't have a garage and our house is tiny, but we can walk to everything we need and work is just a bike or bus ride away. But a recent story from NPR's Marketplace brought me back to my roots in suburbia. The story is about a museum in Kansas that focuses on suburban life in America, and after waxing nostalgic for a bit, I took a journey through the library looking for how suburbia has changed our nation and our lives. 
It was during the 1940s and 1950s post-war boom that the suburbs became popular. Folks wanted to leave the hustle and bustle of the city to live in clean neighborhoods, with single-family homes and front lawns. They were following the "American Dream". The documentary film The New Metropolis, written and directed by Andrea Torrice, opens with home movies of folks realizing that American Dream. It then details the huge government programs that transformed America into the suburban nation it is today, and how the same government programs are now leading to a crisis in suburban America. In this two-part documentary, Torrice discusses the challenges our suburbs face and ideas for how to revitalize them.
But the downsizing of suburbia would not be the end of the world according to Christopher B. Leinberger in his book The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. Leinburger argues that "drivable suburbia" exists today due to the mega car and oil industries' desire to turn America into a car culture, which it most certainly is. But he believes that the American Dream is actually shifting to include urban areas as well, a place where you can live, work, shop and play, all within an easy walking distance. Personally, I agree, that's my American Dream! And I'm no urban planner, but Leinberger seems to realistically outline how this new urbanism can and should work. An interesting read!
The next book, which I very much enjoy, is Dolores Hayden's A Field Guide to Sprawl. Basically, this is a dictionary to the "terms invented to characterize land use practices and the physical elements of sprawl." Phrases like Sitcom Suburb, a term used to describe the link between the popularity of both sitcoms and suburbs happening in the late 1940s and 1950s - think Leave It to Beaver. Or, Category-killer, which is when one part of the retail market, say Wall-mart, competes with smaller, independent stores, eventually cannibalizing them. And let's not forget, Export Garbage, which occurs when waste products have to be shipped off to other locations because a locality does not have a sustainable way to manage it. These definitions, along with Jim Wark's areal photographs, really make this worth a look! 
Lastly, I want to bring up a fiction book called Tales From Outer Suburbia by the always amazing Shaun Tan. It's a wondrous (and more than slightly odd) view of suburbia in Australia with all the (un)usual suspects: lawns (in which reside advice-giving water buffalo); foreign exchange students (from other planets); and television sets (with teeth and legs that chase you). I find Tan's stories heart-breaking, but in a good way. And his illustrations are simply amazing. Definitely check out Shaun Tan!
Posted by Jennifer
It's been a while since my last post on space, but as a full-fledged space geek I couldn't help but get all excited hearing the news around space shuttle Discovery's landing this week. I'll admit I was a bit bummed on Sunday, when I first read about Discovery's long low Earth orbit landing path, and realized that it was not going to be flying over Portland. But for those in its flight path, who saw the streak and heard the sonic boom, you are so lucky! 
The library has so many great things for my fellow space geeks, for instance, NASA's Mission Reports and this documentary, but if you are specifically interested in the space shuttle program, it's history and forthcoming retirement, check out Final Countdown by Pat Duggins. Duggins, National Public Radio's space guy and shuttle expert, takes a look at the space shuttle program from its conception in the 1970s up through its impending retirement this year. And perhaps most interestingly, Duggins looks forward to NASA's plans for the future of space exploration. And it's not all science and technology, it's full of personal stories from astronauts and others involved in the space program. An entertaining and insightful read!
Another lovely book that talks about the history of the space program and the experiences of those involved is Voices From the Moon by Andrew Chaikin. Chaikin (obviously another space geek) writes tons of books filled with first-hand accounts and breathtaking images of space. This one in particular looks back at the epic Apollo missions and I highly recommend you read Chaikin's introduction. He eloquently describes what it was really like for the first men on the moon; engineers, military men, and "ultimate left brain thinkers", who since their return to Earth have been constantly bombarded with questions like, "how did it feel?" Chaiken, with his wife Victoria Kohl's help, gives us a sense of what each individual astronaut did feel, and accompanies it with NASA's beautiful, high resolution scans of the photographs taken during their missions. Though Chapters 11 and 12 have some of my favorite images, for me Chapter 10 was the most interesting, with quotes from the astronauts on what life was like after a trip to the moon. And on page 157, you get to see Apollo 12's lunar module pilot turned artist, Alan Bean, painting away in his Houston studio.
Speaking of beautiful photographs and astronaut artists, we have a wonderful oversized book celebrating 50 years of NASA-inspired art called NASA/Art: 50 Years of Exploration by James Dean and Bertram Ulrich. Back in the early 1960s, during the heyday of the space race, NASA's administrator decided they should use "the field of fine arts to commemorate past historic events." And this book shows you some amazing works of commemorative art, from painter Normal Rockwell to photographer Annie Leibovitz, and all sorts of folks and mediums in-between. As Michael Collins, astronaut and former director of the National Air and Space Museum, states in his forward to the book, "the artist fills the great gaps left by the astronaut and his camera." Personally, I'm rather fond of artist William Thon's gap-filling 1969 images of Apollo 11's launch, on pages 72 and 73.
I now have the overwhelming urge to watch The Right Stuff for the umpteenth time...I'm going to place it on hold!
Posted by Jennifer
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I have an aunt and uncle who are Japanese American. My uncle was born here in the States and is a second generation Japanese American, or Nisei. He was born in 1928 and spent time as a young man in the Gila River Relocation Center near Phoenix, Arizona. Obviously, this had a huge impact on his life and every time I visit my hometown and see him, he brings me something new to read on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, he says it's for my "education". I always look forward to seeing him and to receiving another book, article, or government document to add to my personal library on the evacuation and detainment of Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) during World War II. And I will pass along what I've learned to my own child, not only because this happened to a member of our family, but also because these are the moments in history we should never forget. When I saw OPBs story on the Portland Expo Center's role in the internment of Japanese-Americans, it struck a chord in me and prompted me to look again at our library's collection of materials on this subject. 
This library has hundreds of books on the subject of the evacuation and relocation of West Coast Japanese Americans. I decided to focus on some that for me, make it more real. For instance, in 1942 photographer Dorothea Lange was commissioned by the U.S. Relocation Authority to photograph the evacuation and relocation process of 110,000 Japanese Americans. She not only photographed life in the assembly centers and the Manzanar Relocation Center, but also what these people lost due to their imprisonment: their homes, farms, businesses, and careers. All of Lange's photographs were confiscated during the war for being too controversial. The negatives were thankfully held at the National Archives and now many of them are available in different collections. One collection I particularly like is Impounded in which Lange's photographs are beautifully displayed, along with the notes she wrote for each. This book was edited by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro. 
In a similar vein we find the book Placing Memory, by Todd Stewart. Although it's been 65 years since a Supreme Court decision in favor of Mitsuye Endo paved the way for the opening of the relocation centers and the unrestricted release of their inmates, those camps still exist in the minds and hearts of those who were confined there. And in some cases, they still physically exist in the areas they occupied so long ago. Many of us have seen black and white images from inside the relocation centers, showing how families took what little they had and bettered their living conditions. What is also important is to see, is the larger landscape in which these families found themselves. In his book, Stewart combines archival photos, maps and color photographs of the sites as they exist today. Imagine coming from the hustle and bustle of Portland to the harsh, bleak landscape of the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. Or coming from the lush and fertile California coast to the hot, dry desert of the Gila River Relocation Center, dotted with Saguaro Cactus. This book will help you do that.
I mention above the families who took what little they were given and managed to build a home and a community. The next book I want to mention really highlights that amazing spirit and the importance of art in creating such spaces. The Art of Gaman by Delphine Hirasuna explores the making of arts and crafts in the relocation centers, which she describes as "both a physical and emotional necessity for the internees." The items contained within this book are stunning and I promise they will absolutely amaze you. The first thing you must do is turn to page 74 and gaze upon the Japanese-style vanity made of persimmon wood by Pat Morihata, who was confined at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas. You'll find it beautiful and will be amazed to know that this vanity is made completely without nails, but is instead held together by a perfect dovetailing of pieces. Morihata made this vanity for the woman he was wooing; she said "yes".
In May Sky, by the late Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, we see more of the art that came from Japanese American internment. De Cristoforo, a poet who was interned at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in Northern California, spent years compiling haiku written by others in the camps. I am an admirer of haiku, and this is some of the most beautifully written and heartbreaking poetry that I have read. Take these three pieces, from the famous haiku poet Neiji Ozawa who was interned at the Gila River Relocation Center:
Sensing permanent separation / As you left me in extreme heat / On gravel road
Even babies born / Inside barbed wire fence / Mingling on New Year's Day
From the window of despair / May sky / There is always tomorrow
For each haiku de Cristoforo provides the original Japanese characters, the romanji (romanized form of Japanese) and an English translation.
Posted by Jennifer
I am a wannabe artist and I love art of all kinds: dance, music, theater, and the visual arts. I've been to the Louvre and seen da Vinci's Mona Lisa and I am lucky enough to own a couple pieces by some very talented Portlanders. But honestly, some of the stuff that has moved me most, I've seen just walking down the street. I'm talking about what is commonly referred to as graffiti, street art and murals. Much of it could be described as crude, youthful angst spray painted onto a wall, but some of it is thoughtful, poetic, powerful and even inspiring. Have you seen some of the beautiful City Repair projects, or the whimsical little horses around town, or just what some extremely talented individual has done in the dead of night with some spray paint and a vision! As part of their Pictures of the Day series, the Christian Science Monitor pulled together 14 images of graffiti from around the world.
The library has many books on graffiti and street art and murals but I want to point out one in particular, the bible of graffiti if you will, The Faith of Graffiti with photos by Mervyn Kurlansky and Jon Naar. This work was originally published in 1974 and is often referred to as the "classic text" on the birth of urban street art, focusing specifically on the emergence of graffiti on New York City subway trains. It is an oversized book with pages and pages of amazing images, with the 2009 edition including some additional photos that Naar has taken through the years. And both editions have a mind-blowing essay on street art by Norman Mailer. Here is a taste:
...the unheard echo of graffiti, the vibration of that profound discomfort it arouses, as if the unheard music of its proclamation and/or its mess, the rapt intent seething of its foliage, is the herald of some oncoming apocalypse less and less far away. Graffiti lingers on our subway door as a memento of what it may well have been, our first art of karma, as if indeed all the lives ever lived are sounding now like bugles of gathering armies across the unseen bridge.
If, like me, it's the images you are interested in, take a look at the zine Scrawl. In this zine, author Amy Adoyzie includes photographs of graffiti she took while in Asia. In her introduction she says "it's a sample of art from kids in developing nations...taking back space with their own aesthetics." You'll note that even though the languages (and the alphabets, for lack of a better term) are different, the graffiti looks reassuringly similar to right here at home. It's well laid-out with vibrant pictures.
If your inspired to create your own street art now (though you should know that "unlawfully applying graffiti" is a Class A violation in Oregon) the library has a book for you! Check out Graff by Scape Martinez. Martinez is a veteran artist from San Jose, California, who goes into step-by-step detail on how to take an idea from paper to wall. Plus, it's fun for learning some of the lingo around this art form, and thankfully a glossary is included. Speaking of which, if you need some help deciphering our own local world of graffiti, Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement has created a guide on how to read graffiti!
The last book I want to share has nothing to do with spray paint or markers on walls, but it does, in the most wonderful way possible, capture the beauty that is street art. Slinkachu is a street art/installation artist who takes hand-painted figures, or "little people", and photographs them in the big city (mostly London and Manchester). This is difficult for me to describe in words, but I ask that you take a look! The book is titled Little People in the City and it is a wonderful, whimsical collection of photographs. As The Times so perfectly put it, "even when you know they are just hand-painted figurines, you can't help but feel that their plights convey something of our own fears about being lost and vulnerable in a big, bad city." This is definitely my favorite book right now.
Posted by Jennifer
Last week the Christian Science Monitor reported that even during our current economic crisis, folks are giving to those in need. For many of us, this is what the holiday season is all about, being generous and compassionate with our fellow human beings. And even though we may not have a lot to give, anything helps. Plus, we never know when it might be us who needs the helping hand. One particular issue this article focused on is food insecurity here in the United States. Did you know that in 2008, 49.1 million people lived in food-insecure households, including 16.7 million children? This is according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, click here for more of the USDA's information on "Food Security in the United States". But no matter what the need, I wanted to highlight this article in the hopes of inspiring a season of giving for all of 2010. Let's start the new year off right!
For information on how to make even the smallest donation count, please take a look at Wendy Smith's Give a Little. This book is chock-full of information on a variety of charities, and the ways in which they help people throughout the world. It also includes heart-warming stories from the people on the receiving end. Smith makes clear that even a $10 or $20 donation can really help a person in need. And with so many worthy causes, Give a Little is valuable for the person who knows they want to give, but doesn't know where to start. Smith does an excellent job showing how just a few dollars can cause a ripple effect that "lifts a whole family, a town, and, astonishingly, even a nation of out poverty."
A similar philanthropic how-to is Town & Country: the Guide to Intelligent Giving by Joanna L. Krotz. Again, this book includes personal and inspiring stories of people making a difference, and also gives advice on how best to donate money or time to make the most impact, no matter what your financial status. There is a helpful chapter on examining the things that are important to you in order to find your cause, for "the world and its communities are overflowing with need." Krotz also offers numerous resources at the back of her book to help you create your own "giving plan". This book is full of facts, tips and moving accounts of people's generosity.
Lastly, and again in the hopes of inspiring, Frans De Waal, renowned author and Professor of Psychology at Emory University has written a very interesting book that argues humans and animals are "hard-wired" to express empathy. So often we hear of the selfish acts of our fellow human beings, just look at the actions leading up to our recent economic bust. But in The Age of Empathy, De Wall believes there is a behavioral "glue" in primate societies that includes empathy, sympathy, a sense of fair play, and trust. De Waal refers to this as the "fellow feeling" and goes so far as to quote Adam Smith (who some refer to as the founding father of capitalism) from his own Theory of Moral Sentiments:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
De Waal uses insight and humor to compare human behavior to that of our animal friends and in doing so, makes us all feel a bit more human...and hopeful.
Now go forth and make the world a better place and happy 2010!
Posted by Jennifer
What were you doing 20 years ago? I was in high school and I can clearly remember coming home from basketball practice and seeing people on the T.V. standing on top of this well-graffitied wall, arm-in-arm, celebrating like I'd never seen before. I was not a young woman who paid much attention to politics. I was all about sports and music and my friends. But I remember the profound impact these images made on me. Before that moment, I theoretically understood that people all over the world were living under very different circumstances than my own. But in seeing those images, I finally, really got it. Monday marked the twenty-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and The New York Times did an Op-Ed piece asking poets to write works inspired by the events of November 9, 1989. Reading these poems brought up a lot of those same feelings for me and was a good reminder that the world is full of many people, living in different situations, all trying to find peace and happiness.
Though I already had leanings, this event hit me at just the right moment to turn me into a true history buff. If like me you prefer to start at the beginning in order to get a better understanding of an event, then I recommend The Berlin Wall: A World Divided by Frederick Taylor. Taylor will take you through the division of Germany after World War II , the flight of refugees to the West, the construction and eventual bringing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He discusses the origins of the Cold War and the stark contrast in living conditions between East and West Germany. It is a thick book, but a good one and reads at fairly fast pace. Plus it has pictures, and who doesn't like pictures! 
For me, history really is about the people, and Anna Funder's Stasiland looks back at real people's experiences being under the organized surveillance of East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, with its army of citizen informers. She looks at both those who had the courage to resist during the Communist regime as well as those within the Stasi. There are heartbreaking stories of mothers unable to see their sick children on the other side of the Wall, teenagers arrested for distributing protest flyers, and (for me at least) very unlikeable members of the Stasi regime. Funder does a really wonderful job with this book and I highly recommend it. 
You never know when you wake up in the morning what the day will bring, and there are many events that have been so dramatic as to change the course of history. A compilation of these kinds of events can be found in Where Were You When?: 180 Unforgettable Moments in Living History by Ian Harrison. Mainly through images and with quotes from folks who remember back to the moment, Harrison takes us on a journey starting with the outbreak of World War II through to the 2008 cyclone in Myanmar and earthquake in China. The stories range from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix breaking all publishing records, to Armstrong and Aldrin first walking on the moon. 
And then because this post is just a bit too serious, I need to diverge a bit. Perhaps if you listened to NPR's All Things Considered on Monday you will have heard an interview with David Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff was huge in Germany around the time of the Wall coming down and he believes he may have had a part in its falling. You see Hasselhoff was on his "Freedom Tour" through Germany in 1989 and his song "Looking for Freedom" topped the charts. According to his autobiography Don't Hassel the Hoff, he had the idea of "destroying the Wall as a dramatic part of the show." So he "recreated the Wall out of painted Styrofoam blocks and...drove a Trans Am named 'Freedom' straight through it. And the crowd went wild." Stories like this makes this book (with many color photos) a fun read.
If you were alive back in 1989, please share your memories of this momentous event. And if you have a favorite book, movie or piece of music that reminds you of that time, please share those as well.
Posted by Jennifer
An Open Invitation to Visit the Library
Last week on NPR's Morning Edition they did a fascinating story on the only unsolved prison escape from Alcatraz. On June 12, 1962, Frank Morris, and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin, escaped from the Rock never to be seen or heard from again. I have to say, I love this stuff! The idea that these three guys may have gotten away with what was said to be impossible, and that they could still be around today, living their lives - it's thrilling! I grew up in the Bay Area, but it wasn't until I was home on summer vacation from college that I actually toured Alcatraz. It was a dreary place and when it came to the part of the tour where they lock you in a cell, I refused. Looking back on that day, I can imagine the desperate need to escape that place, spending months painstakingly digging a way out. 
If you want to learn more about Morris and the Anglin brothers, and other attempts to escape Alcatraz, you have to check out the classic text Escape from Alcatraz by J. Campbell Bruce. This book was originally published the same year Alcatraz was shut down as a federal prison, 1963, and it reads like a movie script. Frankly, I'm not sure how he figures the last thing Frank Morris said before leaving the island was "Where the hell's the other oar?...Never mind, let's shove". But I don't care because it's fun to read. You can also watch the 1979 movie based on his book with the same name, Escape from Alcatraz, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as Frank Morris. 
Morris and the Anglin brothers are famous for their escape, and we all know about Al Capone's stay on the Rock and about the Birdman of Alcatraz, but there were many other men imprisoned there during its 29 years as a federal prison. Thomas E. Gaddis highlights some of the less prominent inmates of Alcatraz in his book Unknown Men of Alcatraz. Gaddis' is obviously on the side of the ex-cons he interviews for his book and very much against Alcatraz and all that it stood for. This is made clear with his over-the-top writing style and lines like, "Over in San Francisco Bay sits the evil stone, Alcatraz. It's a gem of a ruin. Its name is the blare of a trumpet. The late slammer wears its hornet's nest of memories like something alive." But this book is a quick and interesting read, and the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are priceless.
Another aspect of Alcatraz that I find intriguing is that even while it was a federal prison, entire families lived together on the island. It's hard to picture children playing and going to school with Machine Gun Kelly as their neighbor, but it happened. Claire Rudolph Murphy talks about two centuries of children living on the Rock in her book, Children of Alcatraz. This book is nice because it discusses what was there both before and after Alcatraz was a federal penitentiary. She highlights the multiple times it was inhabited by Native Americans, its use as a lighthouse and its role today as a historic national park and museum. Furthermore, Murphy's Children of Alcatraz is written for kids, which means the great stories are accompanied by pictures, maps and photographs including one of a young Frank Morris, in reform school at age 14.
So, Morris and brothers Anglin, if you're out there somewhere and want to take a trip down memory lane, stop by the Central Library and ask to see the March 1962 Popular Mechanics' article on flotation devices titled "Your Life Preserver: How Will It Behave if You Need It". We have it here on microfilm and we understand it was a helpful article to you when you needed it...and that's what the library is all about, getting folks the information they need, when they need it!
Posted by Jennifer
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Les Paul, the man who helped bring the world the solid-body electric guitar and arguably helped make rock and roll music what it is today, died last week at the age of 94. I couldn't tell you the name of the "best" guitar out there, or the "best" guitar player, but I know that those questions would be mute without the inventor and musician Les Paul. And from what I've been reading about him over the past few days, not only was he brilliant (and a wicked good guitar player), but he was also a positive, "can do" guy who overcame physical obstacles and continued to play weekly with his friends at New York's Irridum jazz club right up to his death. Les Paul is a person who made the very most of his life, and I think that's something to celebrate.
So let's start the celebration by listening to him play! The library has several CDs featuring Les Paul. I recommend the compilation The Complete Decca Trios-Plus, with two CDs and over two hours of music. This covers recordings made for Decca between 1936 and 1947, earlier then most of the other compilations you'll find, and right around the time Les invented his first solid-body electric guitar prototype, nick-named "the log". These recordings really show the amazing range Les Paul had and feature him with other greats like The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby.
We also have a documentary put out by PBS's American Masters titled Les Paul: Chasing Sound! where the man himself talks about his extraordinary life, including his time on television in the 1950s with then wife Mary Ford and his struggle with multiple health issues and injuries that threatened to keep him from doing what he loved best, playing music. The film incorporates footage of him playing with the likes of Keith Richards and Merle Haggard. It also has interviews with folks like B.B. King and Bonnie Raitt. This is a fun 90 minutes with a real American legend who was truly down-to-earth, and extremely well-regarded amongst his peers. Plus, there is a ton of amazing music!
If you want to know more about his life and the instruments he helped create, I have a couple of suggestions, both written by Robb Lawrence. The first is The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy, 1915-1963 which as its name suggests, covers the beginning of Les Paul's career. It is not only thoughtfully researched, but includes some beautiful original photography. This book really brings home why they call his life and his work a "legacy".
Lawrence follows this first book up with The Modern Era of the Les Paul Legacy: 1968-2008 highlighting Paul's special-themed model guitars of the 1960s and 1970s, and his Custom Shop models of the 1990s. It also talks about Paul's comeback Grammy Award-winning album with Chet Akins titled Chester & Lester in 1976, as well as his weekly gig at the Irridum jazz club that started back in 1996. There are some great videos on YouTube of Les Paul playing at the Irridum. I've included one here from August of 2006.
Bye Les, thanks for the music!
Posted by Jennifer
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Old Black Water, Keep on Rollin'
Being a native to California, I can remember the water conservation programs growing up and the panic I would feel whenever I'd see water flowing unused. When I moved to Oregon, I was overwhelmed by the lush, green landscape and the sheer amount of rain falling from the sky. I felt the panic melt away figuring that with so much rain, we could never run out of water, right? But clean, potable water is like every other resource on this planet, finite. So super smart people are working out ways to do more with what we have. For instance, this recent story from the Daily Journal of Commerce on how PDX is building an office building that will include a "lush, vibrant ecosystem thriving off human waste." Before you say "ew" and close this window, this is some very important work being done. Some say we are experiencing a global water emergency considering the fact that a billion people currently live without a safe water supply.* And as the article states "black water", or sewage, is "one of the last frontiers in sustainability." And this trailblazing is all happening here in Portland (I'm so proud!).
Want to know more about the complex issues around water? Julian Caldecott has written a clear, easy-to-understand tome on the different scientific and sociocultural aspects around water resources and the problems we face. Looking globally, Water: Life in Every Drop does an excellent job of explaining the science and interconnectivity of water - constantly reminding us of its importance. At times, it is gut-wrenchingly painful as Caldecott describes the way water is being abused. But as I require with all books that discuss a problem, he brings up ways we can restore balance. 
So now that you know more, what can you do in your own life to help reuse water? How about becoming a water steward? David Gershon writes a number of books on empowering yourself to live a greener life. Water Stewardship focuses on water preservation and conservation, and gives concrete tools to making a meaningful difference. It also gives tips on how to broaden the scope beyond your household and into your community. 
The article talks about black water, which is something you don't want to be messing with, but there is another form of wastewater called "gray water" that can be reused.** Gray water comes from things like laundry and bathing, and the Guerrilla Graywater Girls want to tell you more about how to work with it in their zine Guide to Water. This group of pioneering woman took their home in a "noisy crack infested corner of Oakland" and turned it into a "beautiful oasis" using water from their shower. Their guide includes some history of water infrastructure and easy-to-understand illustrated guides to the drinking water treatment process, waste water treatment centers and water treatment via nature. There is also a nice section on plumbing basics.
Personally, I can't wait to view the airport's new adminstrative building, with its "lush, vibrant ecosystem". I know it's just one more way we are leading the way and making a difference out here in the Pacific Northwest!
* Per the Natural Resources Defense Council
** The Oregon Revised Statutes regulate gray water in Chapter 454: Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems, Subchapter 454.610 Regulation of gray water discharge. And Oregon's Building Codes Division recently put out a Oregon smart guide to Water Conservation systems that discusses the reuse of "gray water" for flushing toilets.
Posted by Jennifer
This is not my first post about space, nor will it be my last. I'll let you in on a little secret, if I didn't have such a problem with motion sickness and numbers, I'd be an astronaut floating around in space right now - a space librarian! But because I get nauseous on the merry-go-round and need my fingers to do the most basic math, it looks like I'm stuck here on Earth. So I live out my dreams of space travel in the form of books and movies. And as for movies, I think the new Star Trek is pretty much the most fun I've had watching a movie in a long time. So when I heard that a group of three Trekkie astronauts were going to watch the new movie from the International Space Station, I decided that was pretty much the coolest thing ever!
I am not a Trekkie, but I have a respect for those who live by the laws of the Federation and its Prime Directive. And I also love the costumes and makeup! Star Trek Fans and Costume Art by Heather R. Joseph-Witham is a tiny little book that wants to grow up and be a coffee-table favorite! It starts with some well done and thoughtful essays on Star Trek fandom - and all that entails - and then has more than 50 pictures of Trekkies dressed as Starfleet officers, Klingons, Romulans and more. These people are serious! And just in case you want to make your own costume, we have a book for that too!
But I realize that space, real space, is not all fun and games. It's extremely dangerous, and for us human beings, there is very little protection between life and death. I can still remember exactly where I was sitting when I heard about the Challenger* explosion. And I remember waking up to the news about Columbia*. You may remember that the Columbia disaster lead to NASA's decision to ground the shuttle program indefinitely. What many people don't know is that this decision meant three men who were only planning on a fourteen-week stay on the International Space Station were then, for all intents and purposes, stranded up there. And when they finally figured out a way home, it was a most harrowing return flight. Chris Jones does a really fantastic job of retelling this thrilling true story in his book Too Far From Home (later published as Out of Orbit). You won't be able to put it down!
Living on a space station, in very close quarters, has to be difficult. The complete lack of privacy, combined with the remoteness of being in the vast, dark sea of space, must elicit an odd combination of feelings. One novel, subsequently made into a film (twice), that in my mind speaks to these feelings of cramped loneliness, is Solaris. Originally written by Polish author Stanislaw Lem in the 1960's, Solaris tells the story of a space station orbiting a distant alien planet. The scientists on-board are supposedly studying the planet, but the opposite seems to be the case. It was made into a movie in 1972 by the amazing Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovskii and then again in 2002 here in the U.S. starring George Clooney. Tarkovskii's version is my personal favorite. In any case, the story is deeply poetic and powerful.
But what would space travel really be like? Well, that's simple and I can tell you in three words. Ready? Pigs...in...space! Your library has all of the Best of the Muppet Show available, including Volume 4 which includes the brilliantly funny John Cleese starring in "Pigs in Space". You can not beat that kind of realism! But seriously, the Jim Henson Company - creator of the Muppets - does seem to have the inside scoop on extraterrestrial life, as they clearly showed in their series Farscape that aired on the SciFi Channel from 1999 to 2003.
Space is indeed the final frontier and I suggest using the library as your ticket to the solar system and beyond!
* From outside the library, you will need a valid Multnomah County Library Card to read these articles from the Library's Facts.com database.
Posted by Jennifer
Ironically, I don't pay much attention to the news-news, if you know what I mean. So when a colleague came to me a few days ago with a look of horror on her face and said, "I'm going to Mexico in a couple weeks!", I didn't get it. And when I congratulated her on it (because that seemed like the right thing to do) and she looked at me like I had lost my mind, it dawned on me that perhaps I was missing something...and that something was swine flu. Which is, again, ironic, because plague-like pandemics are one of my very favorite topics to read about! There are so many riveting and downright scary stories out there, both true and made up, about blights taking out major sections of the population - or the entire population in the case of The History of the Dead - that it's almost too hard to choose...
The first book I want to talk about it is a fascinating recommendation I got from Emily-Jane. It's Sandra Hempel's The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump and details the true story of John Snow, a doctor in Victorian England, who through determination and scientific investigation (an unknown practice at the time) discovered that cholera was being spread through contaminated drinking water and not just "bad air". This is one of those non-fiction books that read more like a thriller!
Back in college I studied history and one fine day William H. McNeill came to my school and read from his book Plagues and Peoples. In my previous years of studying history I had never heard anyone mention that blankets full of smallpox were just as important to the shaping of mankind's history as the Battle of the Bulge. McNeill and his book intrigued me, and though there have been many books written on similar topics since Plagues and Peoples, in my opinion this is one of the best.
One of my all-time favorite authors is Connie Willis, and one of my favorite books by her is called The Doomsday Book. This award-winning story mixes time-travel, an influenza epidemic in 2054, and the Black Death of 1348. I remember being on the edge of my seat with worry over the characters I had grown so fond of, and Willis does a brilliant job creating a believable future-world while describing with historic accuracy the plague of the Middle Ages.
For more information on swine flu, both the state of Oregon and Multnomah County have set up web pages with up-to-date information. And we here at the library are also keeping folks informed!
Posted by Jennifer
