A Wave of Activity

PREPARATIONS FOR SUMMER READING are currently underway at McAlester Public Library. The wave of activity includes the creation of this undersea mural in the Whiteacre Room, and other water-themed displays. The Summer Reading Program kicks off June 1. The theme for children is “Make a Splash @ Your Library,” and the theme for teens is “Make Waves @ Your Library.”

‘Steel Rain’ Quilt on Display

THIS QUILT, “Steel Rain,” depicts the chaos on the ground in Iraq following the initial wave of bombing in the first Gulf War, and was created as part of a triad to commemorate the Iraq War. The second and third quilts in the series use the same pattern, but follow different color schemes, and are titled “Celebrating What?” and “Let Us Love One Another.” Jeanne Nelson designed the pattern and pieced the quilt tops, and Flora McMannis did the machine quilting. Ms. Nelson offered the series for display at McAlester Public Library, noting that “Steel Rain” also evokes scenes from the current Gulf of Mexico crude oil crisis.

Prize Winners in Library Week Contests

McAlester Public Library has announced winners in the “40 Days and 40 Nights” short story/essay contest, and the “40 Reasons to Love Your Library” contest, both held in conjunction with National Library Week April 11-17.

TOP PRIZE in the 40 Reasons to Love Your Library contests was presented to John Grimm by Lisa Nash.

First place entry in the writing contest was won by Mike Canfield for the entry “Taken for Granite.” Other prize winners were: Caitlyn Clifton, 2^nd place, for “Forty Days (And a Few Long Nights); Will Pierce, 3^rd place, “Addicted Delinquent,” and Mary Adams, 4^th place, “40 Days and 40 Nights.”

Members of the Night Readers book club served as judges. Winners received gift cards from a local retailer. Entries were judged on how well they developed the theme “40 Days and 40 Nights,” chosen to coincide with the library’s 40^th anniversary at its current location.

Forty local and area residents also won their choice of prizes in several categories: books, posters, toys, music CDs, T-shirts, and book bags. Winners were drawn from those who submitted reasons to love the local library. Top prize of a CD boom box was won by John Grimm.

Climb Higher With May Library Events

By KATHY MCGILBERRY

Here it is, May 5 already and we here at McAlester Public Library stand at the base of a very tall ladder. Come, let’s examine the activities at each rung as we climb toward…what? We’ll see, we’ll see.

At the first step up, we see all the library displays. Currently at the front desk, Head Librarian Christine Sauro has a display all about the Gulf oil slick and the attendant crisis. Christopher Elliott has fashioned a display focusing on privacy issues, which was set up to coincide with Privacy Week May 2-8. He’ll follow that up with a display titled “Road Trip,” so gas up and hit the road to the library to see it. And Circulation Librarian Janice Saaranen will encourage reading with her display about book clubs and the materials needed to start one.

The Shelf of the Week display by Nathan Forrest looks at Western history and culture, and by “west” we mean European. Ellen Mills has her own display about Western culture, and by that we mean a cowboy and some frontier stories. In the lobby, you’ll find the display case filled with gardening paraphernalia and gardening books, and local historian Steve Adams has gathered a wealth of information about the 1949 tornado at Crowder, complete with photographs.

We climb a little higher and notice that Children’s Librarian Anita Ross has put all children’s programming on hold in May, while she prepares for the annual Summer Reading Program. Could this be a hint about what waits for us at the top of the ladder? We’ll see, we’ll see.

One more step up, and we see all the teen activities for the month. Teen Librarian Sarah DiLorenzo has scheduled Game Times every Thursday from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Movie Nights in May will be Tuesdays, May 11, 18 and 25. See the display in the teen area for the titles and times. The Manga Club will meet at 5 p.m. Monday, May 10, and the Teen Book Club will meet at 4 p.m. Monday, May 17. They are reading “I Love You, Beth Cooper” by Larry Doyle.

Another step. If you’re prone to vertigo, don’t look down! Look instead at all these adult and family activities:

*Thursday, May 6—Bodacious Bookies meet at 1 p.m. in the Conference Room to discuss Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods.” Then at 6 p.m., the “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma” series wraps up with a presentation in the Whiteacre Room by Dr. Jennifer Kidney, the head of the LTAIO program in Oklahoma. She will give a scholarly presentation about “The Namesake,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. Free refreshments as always, and a drawing for a door prize as well. Be there! It’s the final time we meet until fall, when the series will be “Journey Stories.”

*Saturday, May 8—Second Saturday Cinema is a special double feature this month, with two Marx Brothers classics. The first movie is considered by some to be the greatest comedy film of all time and features the famous mirror scene with Harpo Marx. It begins at 12:30 p.m. Next, the film that Groucho considered the comedy group’s finest, and if you want to say “Hurray for Capt. Spaulding!” this is the film for you. It begins at 2 p.m. Free popcorn as always at this family-friendly event.

*Monday, May 10—Arthouse Theater features a spaghetti western spoof starring Henry Fonda and Terrence Hill. As always, we can’t tell you the name of the film, and even if we DID tell you, you’d probably still be a bit confused. Arrive at 6 p.m. to discover the title, see the film, and get some free popcorn. It’s rated PG.

*Tuesday, May 18—Friends of the Library will meet for their regular noon luncheon before adjourning for the summer months. Then at 6:30 p.m. in the Conference Room, the Night Readers will meet to discuss Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto.”

*Thursday, May 20—It’s another of our regular bimonthly “Open Mike Nights!” If you are a writer, singer, speaker, poet or performer of any sort, we’d love to see you. Past performers have included speakers, poets, singers and dancers. All are welcome; we merely ask that you abide by the library’s behavior policy.

*Monday, May 24—The final movie special before the First Run Indie Movies resume in June will be Oliver Stone’s examination of a radio talk/shock jock’s life and career. The movie is rated R and stars Eric Bogosian. It’s based on Bogosian’s Broadway show. Free popcorn as always.

As we reach the top of the ladder and climb out onto a magically-appearing platform, we note that the library will be closed on Sunday, May 30 and Monday, May 31 for the Memorial Day holiday. The library will be closed on Sundays through the summer months, so look for announcements at the end of summer regarding hours of operation.

So, here we are. Still at May 5, but at a considerably higher altitude. What’s below? It looks like a beautiful clear pool of water. No, it’s the ocean. Perhaps it’s just the tannish waters of Lake Carlton at Robbers Cave, or the slightly more azure waters of Lake Eufaula. I don’t know about you, but I’m jumping in. Why?

Because once we’ve passed all these fascinating May activities, it will be time for the Summer Reading Programs of June and July, when the theme for children will be “Make a Splash @ Your Library!” and the theme for teens will be “Make Waves @ Your Library!”. Watery fun awaits us all, and we’re ready for a dip.

Put on your water wings and join us and we dive! Anita will have all the children’s summer activity calendars ready by May 15, and Sarah will have calendars and sign-up packets for teens on the same date. Teen activities and programs this summer will include a pool party, quilt-making, a Japanese food class, sand castles, tie-dye T-shirts, Karaoke, soap-making, smoothies, a Halo tournament and a Scholastic Book Fair fundraiser.

Hope to see you at the library!

Staff Picks: Kathy Looks for Laughs, Mostly

Here are the latest staff picks from the display near the front desk. Assistant Librarian Kathy McGilberry chose the following titles.

*American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot by Craig Ferguson–This book deserves a place among the few celebrity autobiographies that can be called both engaging and literate. Scotsman-by-birth Ferguson leads the reader through schoolyard fisticuffs, punk rock debaucheries, marital misjudgments and eventually, success with both showbiz and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Ferguson makes a good case for why the United States is still the country of choice for dreamers and idealists the world over.

*Last Words by George Carlin with Tony Hendra–Written in first person from writings, notes, interviews, and conversations between the caustic comedian and his friend and collaborator Hendra, this posthumous offering is what Carlin dubbed a “sorta-biography,” neither straight biography nor autobiography. Fully fascinating, raw and honest, Carlin looks back with both affection and detachment at his New York upbringing, his professional ascension, and his private indulgences. The recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor turns his famously discerning eye on himself, and offers up a bittersweet conclusion to a life of professional successes that still, to his own mind, was incomplete. Carlin was a more-than-competent defender of the liberal mindset, and a tenacious bulldog guarding the idea of free speech.

*The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David A. Kessler–Although you’ll find yourself vowing to eat healthier once you finish this book, this is NOT a diet book. Go elsewhere if you seek calorie counters, weight loss tips, or self-help encouragement. Instead, read this book to learn more about the bloated, entitled, narcissistic American psyche and how we have allowed (with plenty of help from corporate culture!) our basest inclinations to enlarge our bodies and dull our senses. You’ll learn how food science and behavioral psychology have formed an unholy alliance to create in the mass-consuming public a new phenomenon called “conditioned hypereating.” If you think you’re a rugged individualist with enough character to resist the siren songs of sugar, fat and salt now overloading the American food industry, think again. This book will show you how you’ve been conditioned to self-reward with exactly those foods that do you the most harm.

*Raising the Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation by Elizabeth Beckwith–The author puts a bright, funny candy coating of yuks over some heartfelt how-to advice for young parents. Stand-up comic Beckwith has created a zippy little read that would be a perfect nosh for a waiting room, plane trip, or weekend getaway. Although this practicing Catholic recommends nothing more avant garde than using midlevel profanity to make a point to ‘tweens and teens, the easily-shocked should bear in mind that this is a “modified, limited hangout” in terms of postmodern honesty, so be prepared for real family stories. The advice itself? Not bad.

*Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich–Dedicated to complainers everywhere, this book opens with the author’s examination of the positive thinking and self-healing subculture. Ehrenreich’s disdain for what she finds is quickly apparent, and once the fearless author gets to the megachurch “pastorpreneurs,” the reader might expect a verbal evisceration reminiscent of Jesus vs. the Moneychangers, but gets instead an objective and satisfying journalistic deconstruction of the “prosperity gospel.” Then it’s on to psychology, where American Psychological Association president Martin Seligman takes the flogging the pastorpreneurs barely avoided. We learn that Seligman lent his professional expertise to the Bush-Cheney torture efforts, and by the time Ehrenreich leaves the hapless psychologist in a figurative heap on the floor, we begin to understand that not every dark cloud has a silver lining, and “the psychology of happiness,” much like the “prosperity gospel,” is little more than pablum for an infantilized populace. After a convincing conclusion that lays the recent financial crisis solely on the doorstep what Alan Greenspan called “irrational exuberance,” the author flat-out gives us the bad news: Realism, to the point of defensive pessimism, is a prerequisite for human survival. Sometimes there’s a tiger, not a lady, behind the door. And if the reader must have a positive conclusion to cling to, how’s this? Despite decades of positive thinking orthodoxy in business, government, education, religion, and psychology, there remains in the American character a stubborn insistence on preparing for calamity. Witness the 2012 phenomenon and its various offshoots. Looked at from a certain cockeyed perspective, it bodes well for the continued survival of the species, and the contrarian gene in particular.

*Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray–One of the great pleasures of adulthood is choosing to read a challenging book like this one, and finding the choice to be a wise one once the final chapter is concluded. In Vanity Fair, the themes are vast and timeless; the characters memorable and finely-drawn. Thackeray’s language is rhythmic and not inaccessible, with an overarching dry humor that’s the whipped cream atop the dessert. Follow Rebecca Sharp, Amelia Sedley, William Dobbin, Osbornes senior, junior and third, and the many exalted and lower Crawleys through love, misfortune, war, estrangement, exile, charades, and picnicking to their varied and logical ends. Find your particular lesson within any of the book’s many subjects, then return months or years later to find new insights. Our Night Readers book group found this book worthwhile, and chances are you will too.

*Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce–Pierce’s three great, sad premises are slowly finding their way into pop culture consciousness. They are : 1. any theory is valid if it is popular; 2. anything becomes true if said loudly and often; and 3. fact is what enough people believe. Join the author as he explores why we are the way we are, and what we might do to escape the anti-intellectual, propaganda-soaked, junk science-nourished American mainstream. The book is filled with laugh-out-loud one-liners (“America’s always been a great place to be crazy. It just used to be harder to make a living that way”), but its underlying message is a serious one. Smarten up, Idiot America, or die of stupidity.

*Chelsea, Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler–A qualified thumbs-up to this celebrity memoir—more a series of anecdotes than a narrative—simply because the attractive and raunchy comic is everything male comics have always been, and because she doesn’t go down the self-deprecating road that funny females were herded onto for too long. Handler is unapologetically insensitive, happily narcissistic, and cleverly boundary-free as she takes the readers on a whirlwind tour of her life. She’s the motherless youngest child of a n’er-do-well father, and her development was arrested at perhaps junior high level, but she’s funny and she’s quick and she’s worth the effort.