Read, Listen, Watch

Staff Picks and Suggestions

Newsflash: My personal blog

Hi all inquiring minds, I just want to take this short opportunity to let readers of this blog know that I have my own personal blog, unrelated to the library or Northeastern, at http://thecollectordamong.blogspot.com. This blog is all about Movies, generally speaking. I write a lot of film criticism, though also stuff that can’t really be called film criticism, just writing about films. Those who are not very interested in Movies will probably not find anything of consistent interest, though I’d encourage Cinema Studies, Comm Studies and Journalism Majors in particular to check it out. On this blog, I have covered certain films available in Snell, such as many films in the Criterion Collection, Stan Brakahge’s Films,  W.R:Mysteries of the Organism,  as well as the magazine Sight & Sound, which can be found in Snell’s magazine section on the second floor. I also update the blog according to the errors that I find, and I try to write something new at least three times a month. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

Harpist Ann Hobson Pilot retires from BSO

I heard a story yesterday on NPR about the retirement of Ann Hobson Pilot, harpist at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the past 40 years. When she was recruited by Arthur Fiedler in 1969, she was one of only four women in the BSO, and for 20 years afterwards, she was the only African American! There’s a video of her at NPR, and if you’re an NU affiliate, you can log in and listen to a little of her playing as accompanist to the flutes in Gaubert’s Divertiseement grec on the Naxos Online album “Gaubert: Works for flute”.  (Need to see about why that’s not in NuCat yet–but I found it in Nexpress, luckily!) Last night at the BSO’s Opening Night, Hobson played a piece by John Williams commissioned for the occasion of her retirement, which I’m looking forward to hearing re-broadcast on WGBH this weekend.

Brick City

I wanted to quickly post on Brick City, a five-night documentary series that started last night on the Sundance channel.  (I caught the last twenty minutes of it). I had read glowing reviews of it over the weekend, and so I’m DVR-ing the remaining four nights.  And from what I’ve seen and read, I would really recommend it. It focuses on Newark, New Jersey, and its mayor, Cory Booker, as well as a number of citizens: Jayda and Creep, a couple who are also a Blood and a Crip respectively; Ras Baraka, principal of Newark’s Central High School; and Police Director Gary McCarthy. I also tried to search for some background materials in our Library that relate to the history of Newark.  You can find (among others) mystery novels, government documents, history books, and a 2008 New Yorker piece by Peter Boyer on Cory Booker (His piece is from February 4, 2008 and is titled “The Color of Politics”).

Japanese Children’s Stories

I grew up with Japanese fairy tales because my dad grew up with Japanese fairy tales. It had nothing to do with being Japanese (we aren’t) and everything to do with the stories being magical (they are). My dad told me that when he had kids, he hunted through the bookstore for books from a specific publishing company – Tuttle Press – because the pink fabric cover and stylized illustrations were so familiar to him. I recently found a 2003 copy of one of these Tuttle books in the Favat Children’s Section! This collection includes classics like Momotaro (Peach Boy) and the Grateful Jizo statues, as well as lesser known ones like the Bobtail Monkey and the Magic Teakettle.  I even remember watching cartoons of stories like Urashimotaro in elementary school. What is always so interesting to me is how similar a lot of the fairy tales are to western fairy tales, as if they all came from the same place, fragmenting somewhere along the way, and adding a glass slipper here, a red rose there; a rice cake here, a persimmon there.

Access Latino Literature Free Online for Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, Alexander Street Press is offering free access to select full-text, online collections for libraries. Explore poetry, short stories, folk tales, novels, memoirs, non-fiction, and plays in both Spanish and English from Latino writers around the world. Use the links below to browse titles; when prompted, enter username: eviews and password: hispanicheritage . Enjoy, until mid-October!