Results tagged “publiclibrary”

• The big news in local blogs today is the Seattle Times "collaboration" with hyperlocal blogstars such as West Seattle Blog, MyBallard, Capitol Hill Seattle, and Rainier Valley Post. Sure, there's warranted kicking and screaming about anything to do with the Times and online media, but is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship?
• Speaking of hyperlocal news, belltownpeople (giddy about being the densest neighborhood in Seattle) and CHS broke out mayoral race votes by 'hood.

SINGER/SONGWRITER: It's been too long since we heard Molly Rose's dulcet vocals ring out in a local bar, but that's remedied tonight at the Tractor. It's a CD release show for her new album Clandestine, and she's appearing with the Nick Jaina Band and Pickwick. Molly puts just the right amount of poetry into her lyrics, conjuring up image fragments that wriggle like a worm on a catchy hook.

Seattle's Alliance Française--cheese-eating commies, the lot of them, but what would we do without those fabulous sauces?--is celebrating the graphic novel (or "bande dessinée") this week. Things kick off Wednesday at the Alliance Française with an introduction to 20 giants of the genre by Fantagraphics's Kim Thompson. (Not for kids! they say.) Then Thursday is a screening of the documentary Tintin et moi at the Northwest Film Forum. This will disabuse you of the notion that Europeans aren't racist, imperialist pigs just like us. Friday it's down to Fantagraphics to Meet David B. and his art, then Saturday it's David B. again giving at talk at the Seattle Central Library. Sunday David B. joins Jim Woodring and Peter Bagge at the Henry Art Gallery, for a talk moderated by Kim Thompson. Ça y est!

Every once in a while at a Town Hall reading, we have to pinch ourselves to make sure we're awake. Is this really true? Did over 150 people just pay $5 to hear a lecture on behavioral economics? Obviously it helps to be interviewed on NPR. Or maybe it was the New Yorker story by Elizabeth Kolbert.

The Friends of the Seattle Public Library are trying to get people to write to members of the City Council in support of funding collections before the council meets to discuss the budget Tuesday, October, 30. Seriously, a $2.5 million shortfall this year, and a shortfall every year since 2000 when Libraries For All funded a bunch of building upgrades (including the Central Library)? That's really lame, particularly here where we get all proud whenever some list ranks us as the most literate city in the world. The most literate city in the world shouldn't have budget shortfalls at the library, and unless it's all a big show we need to fix SPL funding. We've got a bunch of cool new branch libraries, and the Central Library is great (or not, but whatever, we've got it) but If we're going to take the time to burrow through the rat maze it would help if we could be reasonably certain of actually going home with the book we're after. It has to be fixed.

Well-known alterna-librarian Jessamyn West came to town recently, and finally had a chance to check out our flagship library. Her verdict?

I saw a real disconnect beween the lovely outside and grand entry spaces to the library, plus a few other very design-y areas, and the rest of the building. Materials were hard to find. VERY hard to find. Signage was abysmal, often just laserprinted pieces of paper, sometimes laminated and sometimes not. Doors to areas that may have been public were forbidding and unwelcoming. There weren’t enough elevators. There weren’t enough bathrooms. There wasn’t a comfortable place to sit in the entire building. There were lots of “dead spaces” that, because of architecture, couldn’t really be used for anything and they were collecting dust. The lighting was bad. Stack areas were dim and narrow. The teen area seemed like an afterthought. Bizarre display areas with a table and some books on it were in the middle of vast open areas. Most of the place felt like it was too big and then the stacks felt too crowded and I had to climb around people working to find things. Shelvers shut down the entire “spiral” concept with booktrucks. The writer’s area in this library is a shadow of the glorious writers room in the old downtown building where I had a desk briefly.

You may recall that Seattlest recently moved to Rainier Beach.

Oh, snap! That should read "The Big Harry and the Potters News This Week." The authors of songs such as "Save Ginny Weasley" and "Gryffindor Rocks" are touring the Northwest, and Friday they end up in Seattle for a performance we hear will be "AMAZING!" Hear more of their indie-HP geek stylings MySpace, then make plans to catch them live. Seriously. A friend of our says they really do rock.

Tonight at the Central Seattle Public Library, Tim Westergren, founder of music software company/massive audio archive/internet radio service Pandora, hosts a public forum on his business model and the state of digital music as a whole.

It's not only the anniversary of Mt. St. Helens exploding, it's also the event of a much more unexpected event: On May 18, 1992, for the very first time, a girl allowed 15-year-old Seattlest Seth to kiss her. If that isn't a shameless excuse for a Seattlest roundtable, what is? And so we present...Seattlest's first kiss:

BOOK CRUSH: Librarian Nancy Pearl´s latest book is Book Crush, a guide to books you loved when you were growing up. How does she know? Head over to the launch party and find out.

SHERMAN FREAKING ALEXIE: The best-selling author returns with his first novel in ten years. Flight tells the story of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity. Real Change-published poets (that would actually include Alexie, too) read as part of the program.

The Friends of The Seattle Public Library Book Sale

CALL 911! CALL 911!: Political and economic commentator and White House strategist during the Nixon administration, Kevin Phillips talks about his book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips traces the set of related causes that caused the downfall of historical world powers. That same combination of ills he says -- global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt -- is at work in the U.S. today.

PREQUEL TO MCARTNEY'S WINGS: Richie Unterberger, the author of several books on the history of rock, shows some film footage and plays some music recordings of unreleased Beatles material. He´s promoting his latest book, The Unreleased Beatles -- Music and Film. We had no idea they were in jail! (Ha! Because of the "unreleased" -- see how...oh...sure, we can move on.)

THAT STARBUCKS "I WAS A CHILD SOLDIER" GUY: At twelve, Ishmael Beah found himself fleeing rebels, wandering from village to village. At thirteen, he was a soldier in Sierra Leone, hooked on drugs and capable of things he would never have imagined. Now, rehabilitated and living in the U.S., he tells his story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, in an attempt to raise awareness of the child soldier phenomenon.

It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess.

FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Novelist, nonfiction author, and short story writer Terry Bisson has swept every honor in the science fiction field as well as France's Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. He joins Hugo House's Writing Fantastic Fiction workshop series, where he will teach "Who Likes Short Shorts? We Like Short Shorts!"

THIS RECYCLED OLD HOUSE: Learn the secrets to using reclaimed and recycled materials in home building. Sustainable Ballard presents a panel and discussion on topics including material salvage and green remodeling. Take a tour of an eco-renovated house in the neighborhood.

WOMEN & MONEY: Personal finance expert and author, Suze Orman talks about the complicated and dysfunctional relationship that women have with money in her book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.

LESS IS MORE: In Trance of Scarcity: Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life, Victoria Castle asks why we feel that nothing is ever enough. Castle's book shows us how to escape this malaise and become more relaxed and alive. Hopefully it doesn't involve crisscrossing the U.S. on a book tour.

SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror.

SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.)

AUTHOR, AUTHOR: In Bich Minh Nguyen's memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a young family escapes from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon and relocates to Grand Rapids, Michigan. "In her recreation of a world populated by family ties, Ritz crackers, and Judy Blume books, she has captured the 1980s with perfection," says Kirkus Reviews.

The American Institute of Architects asked 1800 Americans to name their favorite buildings in the US. After further refinement and surveying, the AIA compiled a list of the top 150 and released it on Wednesday.

THEATER: The Brown Derby Series, which debilitated audiences last year with their staged production of Trapped in the Closet, is back, this time they're doing Total Recall. With Seattlest favorite Dusty Warren!

The Seattle Public Library hosted 'A Salute to Tim Egan' last night at the inconvenient hour of 5:30 PM.