Author: Sue

Zoom presentation: Successful Selling through Online Yard Sales

Posted on by Sue

We are pleased to welcome Deb Colameta Saturday morning, October 3rd, at 10 a.m., for a Zoom presentation! Deb is an expert seller, and has made thousands of dollars (and created extra space in her home) by using the power of online yard sales.

Are you moving? Minimizing? Tidying and de-cluttering have become  timely topics, and this workshop will teach you Deb’s best tips for making money while purging your home!  

Also, by upcycling, freecycling, and selling your extra things, you can avoid contributing to landfills. Deb Colameta is the author of “Best Offer, Best Life! Deb’s Quick-Start Guide to Creating Wealth through Online Yard Sales“, which will be available for purchase during the presentation.

Besides using virtual yard sales to create space and earn cash, Deb is an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and runs a consulting practice.

This event is free and appropriate for adults, and is sponsored by the generosity of the Trustees of the Falmouth Public Library.  Registration is required, by 5 p.m. on the day before he event. Please register online by clicking here,  or contact the reference department at 508-457-2555 x 7.

Zoom talk: Whaling in New England

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We are pleased to welcome Dr. Michael Pregot on Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m., for a Zoom presentation by the Falmouth Public Library!

Many different forms of whaling have been seen in Cape Cod. Drift, shore, herding, deep sea and arctic whaling have all been practiced at one time or another. Each specific form of whaling has a small history connected with it. In the early 1800’s, whaling was among the most profitable enterprises in United States, second only textiles. It remained strong for four decades. Michael will explain why whale products are so valuable, and discuss the historic rationales as to why the whaling center moved from Nantucket, to New Bedford and eventually to Providence. The storied lives of a few extremely successful Cape Cod whaling captains make the session come alive.   

Dr. Pregot has spent over a half of a century in the field of education. He has served as a high school principal, a district-wide school superintendent, a professor of education and as a University Director of an Educational Leadership Department. He has published several articles and a textbook on the dispositions needed to be a respected school official. He has lived on the Cape for several years with his wife, Judith.  He is still an on-line professor and author. The maritime history of the Cape has caught his attention for the past few years.  He is currently studying the contributions that each Cape Cod town has made to the overall richness of maritime life.  

This event is free, and geared for adults, although all are welcome. It is a Zoom event, and registration is required by 5 pm on the day of the program. To register, please click here-the link will be sent to you before the event. 

NOTE:  Downloading the Zoom application previous to the start of the event is required to participate. If you need assistance with this, please contact the reference department at 508-457-2555 x. 7.

Zoom event: Liz O’Donnell, author of Working Daughter

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We are pleased to welcome Liz O’Donnell, author of Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Earning a Living, on Wednesday evening, September 16th, at 7 p.m. at the Falmouth Public Library. Liz will share her own experiences, both darkly humorous and heart-breaking, and pass on her lessons learned. Rescheduled from spring, and even more timely now!

Working Daughter is a revealing look at adults caring for their aging parents, and how these unpaid family caregivers are trying to manage eldercare along with raising their children, maintaining relationships, and pursuing their careers. It shares Liz’s story- she was enjoying a fast-paced career in marketing and raising two children when both of her parents were diagnosed with terminal illnesses on the same day. The book will be available for sale by Eight Cousins, online or in the store.

Liz is the founder of Working Daughter, a community for women balancing eldercare, career, and more. An award-winning writer, Working Daughter is her second book, which Library Journal named one of the Best Books of 2019.

A former family caregiver, she is a recognized expert on working while caregiving and has written on the topic for many outlets including The Atlantic, Forbes, TIME, WBUR and PBS’ Next Avenue and has delivered keynotes on the topic to many audiences including Harvard University, MIT, the Marketing to Moms Conference, and the Women Leading Government Conference.

This event is free and appropriate for adults, and is sponsored by the generosity of the Trustees of the Falmouth Public Library.

This is a Zoom event, and registration is required by 5 pm on the day of the program. To register, please click here-the link will be emailed to you before the event! 

NOTE:  Downloading the Zoom application previous to the start of the event is required to participate. If you need assistance with this or with registering, please contact the Reference departnment at 508-457-2555 x 7.

Review: Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe, Vol. 1-6 by Tom Scioli

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One line review: If Jack Kirby and David Lynch teamed up to make a 1980s afternoon cartoon, it would look a lot like this.   
 
Writer/artist Tom Scioli has been a darling of the underground comics scene for years. He’s won multiple awards and huzzahs from his peers, and was personally sought-out by pop star Gerard Way when Way launched his own line of comics with DC in 2016.
 
The reason for this is that Scioli’s comics have a very unique tone to them. There is a playful austerity to them, a po-faced silliness. He blends the dynamic art of 1960s Marvel superhero comics with an almost Cormac McCarthy approach to scripting. The mix is both heady and a headtrip. And kinda goofy.
 
With the comic book series, ‘Transformers vs. G.I. Joe’, Sciloi was given free reign to do whatever he wanted with two of Hasbro’s best-selling toy lines. He could change their backstories, rewrite their futures, and kill off as many characters as he saw fit. Nothing was off-limits. No one was worried about how it would effect toy sales. The result is one of the most imaginative and unpredictable comics I’ve ever read. At times, it feels like a ‘men on a mission’ movie. At other times it feels like Lovecraftian mythology. Then there are the times it just feels like you’re watching some scarily-smart kid smash their toys together on the floor of their bedroom.
 
Some stand-out moments include issue 0, a brief intro to many of the leads and a pretty good litmus test as to whether or not you’ve going to want to stick around, and the majorly meta issue 7, wherein the evil Doctor Mindbender makes Scarlett, “a crossbow-toting southern belle with a history in martial arts”, believe her entire existence is a lie and that she and everything else are actually — gasp! — toys.
 
I read this series 3 years ago, and imagery and ideas from it still pop into my head every week or so. That’s gotta be a good thing, right?
 
(reviewed by Josh)
 
All six volumes of this series are currently available to read — FOR FREE! — via the Hoopla app, if you’re a Falmouth Public Library, West Falmouth and Woods Hole cardholder! Click here.
 
For information on how to get a Hoopla account, click here! 

An Australian Celebration with Didgeridoo Down Under!

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The Falmouth Public Library is pleased to host 3 online Zoom events on Tuesday, July 28th! Events will be available on our YouTube for all to view for the next week!

3 pm- Didgeridoo Down Under (variety show for all ages!)

Didgeridoo Down Under is an energetic fusion of Australian music, culture, puppetry, comedy, character building, storytelling and audience participation. The didgeridoo has been played by Aboriginal Australians for at least 1,500 years, and is known for its otherworldly sound. But DDU is more than music. It’s interactive, educational, motivational and super fun for all ages!

4 pm Aussie Funk Jam (workshop for tweens and teens)

Aussie Funk Jam is a one-of-a-kind musical experience. In this hands-on workshop, participants learn how to play the didgeridoo — including vocalizing, creating simple rhythms and more — with homemade beginner instruments. The Funk Jam is cool, funky and unique … ideal for teens and tweens, but OK for ages 8 and up (even adults). Interested participants will either need to have a couple paper towel tubes available and tape, or pick up some from at the Main Library. Watch social media for more details.

6:30 pm Music & More from the Land Down Under (concert for adults)Music & More from the Land Down Under takes the audience on a musical journey to Australia and beyond, as the performer plays an assortment of didgeridoos and percussion instruments … mixed with colorful stories and humor. Our performers play a modern style, mixing fast-paced rhythms with relaxing soundscapes and organic sound effects. This program is best for adults, but is OK for kids with parental accompaniment.  

These events are free.  Participation by Zoom, must register (separately for each).  Downloading the Zoom application previous to the start of the event is required to participate. To register, please go to falmouthpubliclibrary.org/events. If you need assistance, please contact the children’s department at 508-457-2555 x 6.

Sister Novelists: Emily and Anne Bronte

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After listening to Jill on the Point with Mindy Todd discussing Books about Sisters (03/27/20) and jotting down their recommendations of books about sisters, I thought about books by sisters. Although sisters usually share a similar background and familial history, they can become quite different individuals. The Bronte sisters shared an insular and somewhat dark and violent family life. Much of this is echoed in Wuthering Heights and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall- the former I read when snowed in and the latter while sheltering in place. However, in my casual, non-academic reading of these novels, I found two very different heroines with equally different fates. Perhaps, the differences between Cathy Earnshaw and Helen Graham speaks of that of the sisters, Emily and Anne?

(by staff member Rebekah)

 

Honoring Falmouth Veterans

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In honor of our local heroes this Memorial Day, we are requesting photos of Falmouth residents who died in the military for our Digital Collections page (click here).  Please email them to fpldigital@falmouthpubliclibrary.org, and make your subject “Honoring Falmouth Veterans.” Please include the veteran’s name, branch of service, and the war in which they served.   

 

Hoopla Music Review: Dizzy Gillespie ‘Jambo Caribe’ (1964)

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You know how they always told you never to judge a book by its cover? Well, in this case, they’re wrong. Just look at that thing. Is it a child’s sugar-fueled scribblings, a Ralph Steadman/Hunter S. Thompson ‘Fantasia’ sequence, or Harry Belafonte’s worst experience on acid? It’s hella bizarre whatever it is, and it pretty much sums up the eclectic and eccentric music contained within.

Alternating between cool, catchy, Caribbean-influenced instrumentals like ‘Hello, Trinidad’ and ‘And Then She Stopped’ and the frenetic, infectious insanity of Dizzy’s vocals on songs like ‘Poor Joe’ and ‘Don’t Try To Keep Up With The Joneses’, this is one of the most exciting and unusual jazz/world albums you’re ever going to hear.
 
Future stars Kenny Barron (piano) and James Moody (flute) accompany throughout, but ‘Jambo Caribe’ is truly the personality and sound of just one man, bebop’s most famous extended cheeks, Mr John Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie. It may be his experimental, unpredictable trumpet playing that has kept this album relevant with critics and jazzopiles over the years, but it’s his playful sense of humor and obvious affection for the calypso music of the West Indies that will keep you laughing, singing, and jumping around your house every time you play it.

Falmouth Public Library, West Falmouth and Woods Hole cardholders can stream the album FREE on Hoopla here. For information on how to get a Hoopla account, click here! (reviewed by Josh)

Hoopla AudioBook Review : The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout, read by J. P. O’Shaughnessy

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(reviewed by Josh)

An aging gunfighter rides into El Paso, looking to die quietly — and anonymously — from the cancer that has taken root in his prostate. Word of his condition spreads quickly, though, and soon the town is overrun by former foes looking to settle old scores, up-and-coming gumen hoping to make a name for themselves, and a few nosy fans who just want to shake his hand. Needless to say, this is neither quiet nor anonymous. It is violent. Very violent. Yet also very funny. There’s a rich, character-based vein of dark comedy that runs throughout The Shootist that makes it as fun to read as a novel by Elmore Leonard or Janet Evanovich. Blend that with the overarching theme of facing one’s own mortality, and you’ve got a story that’s perfect for these dark times.

Falmouth Public Library cardholders have free access to Hoopla, which offers an audiobook version of this book here.

Learn how to get Hoopla in this post!

Are You a ‘Gateway Reader’?

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My high school’s D.A.R.E. program (a well-meaning, misguided, state-funded attempt to keep kids off drugs) used to use the term ‘gateway drug’ to describe any drug that appeared harmless (cigarettes, pot, leaning in too close to one’s magic markers), but inevitably led to other, more dangerous narcotics (crack, crystal meth, permanent markers). In recent years, I’ve begun to rework the ‘gateway’ moniker to fit the needs of my own vice of choice — books.

Gateway Books are books that are so darned good that they make you want to read any and all the other books name-dropped within.

One of the first gateway books I remember coming across was S.E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’. Not only did I pick up some random Robert Frost in hopes of finding ‘Stay Silver’ and ‘Stay Bronze’ (his lesser works), I also rented the videotape of ‘Gone With The Wind’ (the book looked too long and too boring to my fourteen year old self — and still does!). A decade or so later while reading all of the Elmore Leonard novels, I had an ongoing ‘secondary syllabus’ made up of all the crime fiction paperbacks Leonard had his characters reading.

The ultimate Gateway Book for me, though, has been Mike Davis’ ‘City of Quartz’. Davis, a Los Angeles historian with a photographic memory and a gift for finding the threads that bind seemingly disparate subjects together, had me watching film noir classics like ‘Detour’ and ‘The Big Sleep’, gobbling up the South Central-centered pulp fiction of Chester Himes, the dark, satiric, science fiction of Aldous Huxley, and becoming a salivating fan boy at the altar of Joan Didion’s 1960s suicidal California travel lit. I’m not exaggerating — I literally spent an entire year exploring the books, movies and music mentioned in ‘City of Quartz’. If that ain’t the obsessive-compulsive behavior of an addict, I don’t know what is. [we have since ordered ‘City of Quartz’ for the library, and hope to have it soon!]

How about you? Do you have any ‘Gateway Books’ that sent you tumbling deeper and deeper down the reading rabbit hole? If so, please share them in the comments!
 
This blog written by Josh M.
 
Link to eBooks in Overdrive where available, here!
 
Elmore Leonard (some available in Overdrive, via CLAMS or other MA library networks!)
Robert Frost-bio, and links to some of his poems, here.
Aldous Huxley, ‘Brave New World’ ebooks here.