April 6, 2011
The Love-Hat Relationship by Aaron Belz I have been thinking about the love-hat relationship. It is the relationship based on love of one another’s hats. The problem with the love-hat relationship is that it is superficial. You don’t necessarily even know the other person. Also it is too dependent on whether the other person is […]
April 5, 2011
First it was dogs, now it’s birds. I seem to tune into NPR’s “All Things Considered” and find myself listening to animal-related stories that somehow have a connection to our own Evanston library. On April 1st, I posted a link to a story about Monty the Yale Library therapy dog which brought to mind our “Tail Waggin’ Tutors” program […]
April 5, 2011
Will the youngsters in this picture enjoying the children’s room at the Evanston Public Library grow up to think of a library as a “temple of books?” If the current trend of the digitization of reading and research continues, they may not even have to visit a library to be regular patrons. This very interesting […]
April 5, 2011
Happy As The Day Is Long by James Tate I take the long walk up the staircase to my secret room. Today’s big news: they found Amelia Earhart’s shoe, size 9. 1992: Charlie Christian is bebopping at Minton’s in 1941. Today, the Presidential primaries have failed us once again. We’ll look for our excitement elsewhere, […]
April 4, 2011
Sixty years after it was first published, the original version of the classic novel, From Here to Eternity, is now available uncensored. The reissued digital edition has restored expletives and explicit homosexual scenes which were removed from James Jones’ original manuscript in 1951 (despite his protestations). Mr. Jones’ daughter, writer Kaylie Jones, revealed the cut passages and her father’s objections […]
April 4, 2011
On Sunday afternoons, volunteers of the Chicago Books to Women in Prison meet and read letters sent by women in prisons throughout the country. Chicago BWP fulfills their requests as best they can, sending paperbacks to prisons in Illinois, as well as Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri. This group “is dedicated to offering women behind bars the opportunity for self-empowerment, education, and entertainment […]
April 4, 2011
Early Spring by Rainer Maria Rilke Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows’ wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle risings that find expression in the empty trees. This poem was selected by Rika […]
April 3, 2011
You can hear poet and memoirist Mary Karr give a poetry reading at the Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium (230 S Columbus Dr) on Tuesday, April 5 at 6pm. As fans of Karr’s widely read memoir Liars’ Club will know, Karr follows the dictum of her mentor, Tobias Wolff, to “tell a bit more […]
April 3, 2011
River by John Ashbery It thinks itself too good for These generalizations and is Moved on by them. The opposite side Is plunged in shade, this one In self-esteem. But the center Keeps collapsing and re-forming. The couple at a picnic table (but It’s too early in the season for picnics) Are traipsed across by […]
April 2, 2011
raccoon prayer by Lucille Clifton oh Master Of All Who Take And Wash And Eat lift me away at the end into evening forever into sanctified crumples of paper and peelings curled over my hand i have scavenged as i must among the hairless now welcome this bandit into the kingdom just as you made […]
