Category: Miscellany

Mass Audubon: “Coming to a Suburb Near You”

Posted on by Sue

We are delighted to welcome Ian Ives from Mass Audubon, on Wednesday afternoon, February 10th at 2 pm, for a Zoom presentation by the Falmouth Public Library.

He will explore the increase in abundance of deer, coyote, fisher, turkey, bobcat and osprey and the conflicts, management measures and ethical considerations that arise as a result. 

Ian Ives is the Director at Mass Audubon’s Long Pasture, Ashumet, Barnstable Great Marsh and Skunknett River Wildlife Sanctuaries on Cape Cod. His job responsibilities include overall management of the sanctuaries and staff, community outreach, advocacy, environmental stewardship and education. He holds a Master’s degree in conservation biology from Antioch University – New Hampshire.

Ian has a strong background in wetland restoration and endangered species management and is leading environmental advocacy and conservation projects across the Cape to help protect rare wildlife and threatened natural resources they depend on. Formerly, Ian was a Field Biologist for Hyla Ecological Services in Concord MA, and was a zookeeper at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. 

This event is free and appropriate for adults and teens, and is sponsored by the Friends of the Falmouth Public Library.  Registration is required, by 1 p.m. on the day of the event. Please register online at falmouthpubliclibrary.org, or contact the reference department at 508-457-2555 x 7.

Jumpin’ Juba-a Zoom musical event!

Posted on by Sue

Listen online to a special offering from Steve Hurl and Bruce Ward of Jumpin’ Juba, on Tuesday evening, February 2nd, starting at 6:30 pm!

Jumpin’ Juba mixes regional blues from Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans together with roots-y rock & roll, jazz, calypso, and Latin flavors. It features Steve Hurl (guitars, vocal), whose playing draws from the great acoustic blues finger-pickers, and from the blues-y string benders of the 1950’s. Bruce Ward’s burly piano work recalls such greats as Prof. Longhair, Otis Spann, and Albert Ammons. The band’s two CD releases (Bumpity Bump and Slap Happy) have received regional and overseas airplay, and have garnered many favorable reviews in MA and beyond. Read more about the band on their page, here!

This is a free event, sponsored by the Falmouth Cultural Council! Registration is required to get the Zoom link. You can register online, by 5 p.m. on the day of the event by clicking here, or by calling the reference department at 508-457-2555 x 7.

Falmouth Public Library Reading Challenge 2021

Posted on by Sue

Happy New Year!  If you are looking to get outside your literary comfort zone this year, join our reading challenge group on Facebook – “Falmouth Public Library Reading Challenge 2021”. 

We are encouraging people to read one book a month, each from a different category.  We hope the group will function as a loose book club – a place where people can recommend books to others and find their next read.  The category for January is “Autobiography, Biography, or Memoir”.  

(Visit the group by clicking here,  to see all 12 categories!) If you’re looking for a jumping off point, check our Facebook Group for recommendations from the staff.  If you’ve got one you’d like to share, visit our group and feel encouraged to post it!  This is a public group, and you certainly don’t have to read a book from each category to participate.  The goal is simply to create a space for readers to find books they might not otherwise have picked up, and to share highlights with each other.  

Crafty Books on The Point with Mindy Todd

Posted on by Phoebe Acheson

December 30, 2020

This morning on the monthly book show on The Point with Mindy Todd we had the pleasure of Kellie Porter, librarian at the Woods Hole Library, joining us to talk about books focusing on crafts. After a very difficult year, we thought some crafty books would inspire us to be more crafty in 2021 as a way to focus on something other than 2020! As written in Craftfulness: mend yourself by making things by Rosemary Davidson and Arzo Tahsin: “As  long as we are making and creatively fulfilled we are equipped to deal with all the rest that life throws at us.” In the photo attached to this blog, you will see Mindy’s Fa La La Felt bird, and my sixth grade puppet, both of which are now Christmas ornaments on my tree every year. My puppet, by the way, was Belle, who I was cast as in a sixth grade play reading (with puppets) of A Christmas Carol by Dickens. You’ll also see a WCAI mug which was made by Tessa Morgan of Flying Pig Pottery.

Below you will find a list of all the books we mentioned, and a few for which we did not have time. If we missed your favorite craft book, feel free to leave us a comment below.

Here is a link to the program on WCAI ‘s website so you can listen anytime.  https://www.capeandislands.org/post/books-crafts

Mindy’s Picks

Fa La La Felt by Amanda Carestio. Amanda’s follow-up to this was Heart-Felt Holidays

Not A Box by Antoinette Portis

Kellie’s Picks

Craeft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langlands
The Foxfire Book edited with an introduction by Eliot Wigginton
51 Things to Make with Cardboard Tubes by Fiona Hayes
Paper Goods Projects by Jodi Levine
Playing with Books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book by Jason Thompson
BIBLIOCraft: A Modern Crafter’s Guide to Using Library Resources to Jumpstart Creative Projects by Jessica Pigza
The Repurposed Library: 33 Craft Projects That Give Old Books New Life by Lisa Occhipinti
Foxtails, Ferns, & Fish Scales: A Handbook of Art and Nature Projects by Ada Graham

Magazines:

Quiltfolk
By Hand
Pompom Quarterly
Laine
Koel
Making Stories

No time for but they’re really great:

The Paper Hat Book by Alyn Carlson
Every Day’s a Holiday: Year-Round Crafting with Kids by Heidi Kenney
The Geometry of Hand-Sewing by Natalie Chanin
Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown
Socks Appeal: 16 Fun & Funky Friends Sewn from Socks by Brenna Maloney

Jill’s Picks

(You’ll notice that Kellie and I had lots of overlap!)

Cattastic Crafts by Mariko Ishikawa
Crafts By the Sea by Larissa Costello
Art and the Seafarer: a historical survey of the Arts and Crafts of Sailors and Shipwrights. General editor Hans Jürgen Hansen.
Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langlands
Book Art by Clare Youngs
BiblioCraft by Jessica Pigza
D.I.Y. Dollhouse by Alexia Henrio
Out of the Box by Jemma Westing
15 Minutes of Flame: a Nantucket Candle Maker Mystery by Christin Brecher
Craftfulness: mend yourself by making things by Rosemary Davidson and Arzu Tahsin

 



A New Text-A-Librarian Number

Posted on by Phoebe Acheson

For many, many years now we have had a service where people could Text-A-Librarian any question that they might have, whenever and wherever they were. We saw a huge increase in our Text-A-Librarian service when our building was closed to the public. One of the reasons for that was when we were closed the number was probably the first thing you would see when you got to our web page.  However, we now have a brand NEW number for texting the library, which is 833-209-9922. Questions are answered only during our open hours, but we will get back to you as soon as we can. Give it a try!

Welcome back, concert violinist Joshua Peckins!

Posted on by Sue

Listen online to a special offering from award-winning concert violinist Joshua Peckins, on Wednesday evening, December 2nd, starting at 7 pm! In intimate settings, Josh usually presents a series of lecture recitals featuring solo violin music by Bach and other composers, with warm and personal stories about the composers and their music-his appearance here last winter was widely attended and loved. Due to the pandemic, Joshua is not able to perform in person, but has made a short concert film that registrants can listen to online, on one special evening!

“It is a 45-minute film, recorded in high-quality audio and video, with Joshua performing solo violin selections by Bach and Ravel, and a beautiful piece by rising star classical composer Jessie Montgomery.

In “Songs of Loss and Hope”, Joshua is both speaker and musician, sharing historical perspectives about the composers and their times, as well as their connections to each other as an introduction to each piece he then performs. 

This film is much more too – created both in and for this difficult time of social isolation, it’s a personal statement by the artist about the meaning of music in our lives, and importance of the connection between performer and audience.”

Joshua has been among the most active recitalists in New England, performing solo concerts of “particular brilliance” (Worcester Telegram) and with “a gift for capturing audiences’ attention” (Backyard News). He has presented solo recitals nationally and internationally in over 30 venues, including the renowned Figaro Hall of Palace Pálffy (where Mozart himself presented his “The Marriage of Figaro”), Crystal Hall in Japan, the Haydn and Mendelssohn Halls in Austria, as well on the Artist Series of the Bled Festival in Slovenia, the Salzburg Festival at the Mozarteum, the Orford Festival in Canada, and the Cervo Festival in Italy.

This is a free event. Registration is required to get the link, and the film will be available to view between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m., on that evening only. You can register online at falmouthpubliclibrary.org/events.  We thank the Trustees of the Falmouth Public Library for sponsoring this concert!

 

Boston, My Blissful Winter, with translator Paulette Boudrot (a Zoom event)

Posted on by Phoebe Acheson

We are pleased to welcome accomplished translator, French instructor and Fulbright Scholar in Twentieth Century French Literature, Paulette Boudrot, on Wednesday evening, November 18th at 7 p.m., for a Zoom presentation!

Boston, My Blissful Winter follows a young French banker experiencing Boston for the first time as an intern at a downtown bank in the 1980s. Seeking to overcome his solitude, he visits the city’s concert halls, jazz clubs, businesses, museums, cafes, theaters, antique shops, fine restaurants and local diners. He rubs elbows with Boston Brahmins, academics, a struggling musician and a librarian, among others. With vivid images of winter and a keen eye for detail, these twelve short stories bring the unique character of the city to life and offer a glimpse into the heart and soul of the thoughtful narrator. Paulette will discuss the book, and her translation process!

Author Alain Briottet devoted his life to a career in French diplomacy. He served in Europe, America, and Asia, and held several positions in collaboration with the French Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Paris and throughout the world. Paulette Boudrot earned a BS in Education from Bridgewater State University, an MA in French Language and Literature from Middlebury College Vermont, and a diploma in Twentieth Century French Literature from the Sorbonne, University of Paris, as a Fulbright Scholar. Paulette taught French and ESL in elementary schools, colleges, and universities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  During the 1980s, she transitioned from education to administration at the French Cultural Services at the French Consulate in Boston. In 2010, she was awarded the status of Chevalier in the Order of Academic Palms by the French government.  Paulette resides in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Boston, My Blissful Winter is her debut literary translation.

This event is free and appropriate for adults and teens.  Registration is required, by 5 p.m. on the day of the event. Please register by clicking here! If you have any questions or need assistance, call the Reference Desk at 508-457-2555 x 7.

Visiting the Beyond-a Zoom presentation!

Posted on by Sue

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a REAL haunted house looks like?  Join paranormal researcher Curt Strutz, on an interactive Zoom presentation for Falmouth Public Library, on Saturday, October 24th at 4 p.m.

“Visiting the Beyond “is an historical journey to several locations around the U.S. Curt has personally visited haunted homes, asylums, prisons, hospitals, public places, and other locations, and taken photographs. The audience will be able to select specific haunted properties off of a “menu”. It may even bring chills down your spine- just in time for Halloween!

Curt has nearly 10 years of experience in giving these presentations, at hundreds of libraries and museums, and has been a past guest speaker at Troy Taylor’s Haunted America Conference.He was a keynote headline speaker for the Illinois Paranormal Conference a few years back. He also was on a nationally televised cable access TV program known as Paranormal Generation that aired for two seasons in 12 states.  His episodes at Paranormal Generation can be found on YouTube.

This event is free and appropriate for adults and teens, and is sponsored by the generosity of the Trustees of the Falmouth Public Library.   It is a Zoom event, and registration is required by noon on the day of the event. Click here to register. If you would like to register after it has closed, please call the Reference Desk!at 508-457-2555 x 7!