Do you want to give meditation and mindfulness practice a try, but don’t know where to begin your journey?
Join us on Saturday, March 18 from 1-3 pm at HCLS Miller Branch for an afternoon of informal meditation and mindfulness in an open setting brought to you by The Healing Flame Collective.
Founded by musical team Janice Buerkli (known in her community as “Janice B.”) and Maurice Carroll, The Healing Flame Collective is a group of musicians, sound healers, and energy workers united by the common cause of healing. According to Janice B., “the concept and purpose of the group is to help as many people as possible with the combined healing power of music, meditation, energy work, and vibrations in a live experience.”
Attendees of the free session on March 18 experience guided meditation and breath work, sound healing vibrations, and a mini seated Reiki session. For those new to Reiki, it is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that promotes healing. Reiki is based on the idea that “life force energy” flows through us and causes us to be alive. If one’s “life force energy” is low or blocked, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stressed. Sound Healing also works with energy and uses a variety of singing bowls, tools, and instruments in specific frequencies and vibrations designed to promote healing. Benefits of Reiki and Sound Healing include a reduction in stress, anxiety, and depression, alleviation of physical and emotional pain, an increase in gamma brain waves which aids in cognitive function, and increased relaxation. Participants should feel encouraged to participate at their own comfort level and have the opportunity to ask questions. All who attend should emerge from the session feeling more relaxed and aligned. Janice B. describes the event as, “a great opportunity to try out these healing modalities without committing to the time and cost of a full in-person session.”
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
With temperatures falling outside, there is no better time to get cozy inside with some comfort food cooking. If you’re looking for inspiration, consider one of these new or new-to-our-collection cookbooks to liven up your repertoire.
In Tasty Total Comfort: Cozy Recipes with a Modern Touch, the minds behind the food site Tasty.co present a whimsical collection of comfort food from around the world. With 75 easy-to-follow recipes, this vibrantly photographed cookbook has you covered from breakfast to midnight snacks and all the little (or not so little) meals in between. The tone is approachable and playful (tater tot casserole on the cover) and, in addition to providing the reader with such tempting recipes as Korean Hot Dogs, Fried Chicken Adobo, and Spumoni Sundae Brownies, it gives reassurance that cooking, like eating, should be fun.
With Natural Flava, brothers Craig and Shaun McAnuff showcase the vibrant vegan Ital cuisine of Jamaica’s Rastafarians. According to the publisher’s website, “Ital means clean, natural, and unprocessed as much as possible. Rastafari is an expression of unity with all things, and the Ital diet reflects that through a sense of peace and togetherness with the natural world.” Although Caribbean cuisine may be famous for meat-centric dishes such as jerk chicken, the region is abundant with fresh fruits and vegetables such as plantains, yams, jackfruit, and guava that lend themselves to many tasty plant-based recipes. From coconut pancakes with warm blueberries to potato and chickpea curry with roti, the McAnuff brothers share a bounty of quick and delicious recipes that highlight the rich culture of their Jamaican heritage.
For me, nothing says comfort food like dumplings. And I think Top Chef alum Lee Anne Wong, author of the cheekily-titled Dumplings All Day Wong, might agree. Like a proper dumpling, this 2014 cookbook is stuffed with tasty goodness, featuring recipes for such tempting bites as Kimchi Mandu and Miso Short Rib Dumplings. Wong begins the book by covering the basics, in this case, dumpling wrappers, and provides suggestions for both store-bought and homemade. From there, she describes various dumpling folds and offers several recipes for each dumpling type as determined by fold/shape. Now that you’ve read the word “dumpling” eight times, don’t you want to try to make and eat your own? With Chef Lee Anne at your side, you can’t go wrong, (but you might go Wong)!
In the follow-up to his acclaimed 2020 celebration of Mexican-American cooking, Chicano Eats, Edwin Castillo shows us his sweeter side. In Chicano Bakes, southern California-based Castillo shares recipes that featured in his childhood in Orange County: pan dulce, tres leches cake, and panque de nuez (sweet pecan loaf), as well as creative twists on Mexican classics such as red velvet chocoflan. Through the 80 recipes and vivid color photos featured in this book, Castillo opens a window onto the delicious, vibrant world of his life, family, and Mexican-American culture.
Whatever region of the world or section of the Dewey Decimal system your appetite takes you to, come browse our cookbook collection for a read that’s sure to bring you warm, delicious comfort.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
Feeling stressed? Relieve some of that tension and join us for Stress Free STEAM. In this low-key, hands-on monthly series, commune with other adults while exploring various topics in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math.
Each class session focuses on a different subject and features an engaging and creative hands-on project. Among other inventive projects, previous creative customer favorites have included miniature cabinets of curiosity, Japanese Gyotaku fish prints, and Fibonacci spiral paper sunflowers.
On Thursday, January 5 we will examine the science of snowflakes. Learn why no two snowflakes are alike, among other fascinating facts, before making a unique paper snowflake.
All abilities welcome. Beginners and the non-crafty are encouraged to come. Materials provided.
Stress Free Steam for Adults meets at the Miller Branch on the first Thursday of the month. Register here.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
Are you looking to take your relationship to the next level? Or searching for a new twist on date night?
You can hone your skills for maintaining a stable marriage or committed partnership through upcoming classes using material from ELEVATE. Developed in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Georgia and at Auburn University, the program blends practical skills with an understanding of the physiology of human interaction to enhance healthy adult relationships.
The two core components of ELEVATE are (1) practical strategies and tools and (2) the inclusion of mindfulness practice activities that help couples manage intense emotions by learning to regulate their heart-brain response to stressful triggers. Couples leave equipped with tools to communicate (and argue) more effectively, resolve conflict, and strengthen their relationship.
University of Maryland Family and Consumer Sciences Specialist Dr. Alexander Chan leads this inclusive and LGBTQ+ friendly class. This series is designed primarily for couples who are currently in a committed relationship. Individuals may attend without a partner, but couples attending together receive the most benefit.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
If you don’t think you know Alison Bechdel, cartoonist extraordinaire whose 2006 graphic novel Fun Home was adapted as a Broadway musical, you may have heard of the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test, a tool for evaluating the depiction of women in film (though the test can be applied to literature as well), has its origins in The Rule, a 1985 strip of her long-running comic Dykes to Watch Out For. In response to being asked to go see a movie, a character explains her “rule” about movies having to meet three requirements: 1) it has to have at least two women in it who 2) talk to each other about 3) something besides a man. Bechdel has expressed surprise at the cultural influence of something that came about when she was out of ideas for her strip and heard her friend Liz Wallace mention her own version of the “rule.”
“The only movie my friend could go see was Alien, because the two women talk to each other about the monster. But somehow young feminist film students found this old cartoon and resurrected it in the Internet era and now it’s this weird thing. People actually use it to analyze films to see whether or not they pass that test. Still … surprisingly few films actually pass it.”
Bechdel got her start as a professional comic artist in June 1983 when WomaNews, a New York-based feminist newspaper, published her first strip. Her single panel art evolved into multi-panel strips and she was later picked up by several national alternative and gay weekly papers. Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF) chronicled the everyday lives and misadventures of lesbians in a mid-size American city. Bechdel referred to it as “half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel.”
Bechdel, who identifies as a lesbian since coming out at age 19, may be best known for her graphic novel memoirs that explore sexuality, identity, and familial relationships. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was published two years before DTWOF ended its run in 2008. This richly-detailed, poignant, and humorous autobiography delves into Bechdel’s past as the daughter of Bruce Bechdel, a closeted gay funeral home director.
The details of the author’s youth are as carefully rendered as the family’s gothic revival house was painstakingly restored by her father, an aesthete who, “treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.” Bechdel compares her late father to F. Scott Fitzgerald, an author he revered, and the entire novel is peppered with literary allusions, which is fitting considering both her mother and father were teachers and voracious readers.
As Bechdel reflects on her relationship with her late father, I was moved by her ability to render him with sympathy despite his many flaws as a parent. I’ve heard some refer to Fun Home as a “gateway” graphic novel, as its themes of family and identity and its tender, comic narrative have a universal appeal, making it accessible to readers who may be new to the form.
Are You My Mother?: a Comic Drama was published in 2012 and was the first full length work of Bechdel’s that I read. Pregnant with my first child at the time, I was especially drawn to this fascinating portrait of Bechdel’s complicated relationship with her mother. A formidable figure, Bechdel’s mother kept her daughter at a distance, and stopped touching or kissing her good-night at the age of seven.
A frustrated artist stuck in a deeply unhappy marriage, Helen Bechdel might be what English pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott called a “good enough mother”- a mother who, in her imperfection, gives her child space to grow and develop independently of her. Bechdel spends quite a bit of ink on Winnicott and his object-relations theory, and on psychoanalytic therapy, where Bechdel has spent many hours over the years. In addition to examining her intense relationship with her mother, she also chronicles her romantic relationships with women over the years as a self-confessed “serial monogamist.”
I think that many readers will sympathize, as I did, with Bechdel’s simultaneous desire to please her mother while also trying to establish her own creative identity. A scene that I found especially touching involved Bechdel’s mother taking dictation from a young Bechdel, as she narrated the events of her day: a mother-daughter diary collaboration as well as a foreshadowing of the years of therapy to come in Bechdel’s future.
Bechdel’s most recent graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, came out in 2021 and focuses on the author’s lifelong obsession with working out.
Starting with a childhood preoccupation with the Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads she saw in her comic books, Bechdel became fixated on exercise as a means of quieting her anxious brain and controlling, and even transcending, her physical form. Although I was a bit skeptical when I first heard the subject of the book, any misgivings were laid to rest as I quickly became absorbed by the narrative, following Bechdel on a diverse tour that visits Jack Kerouac and the Beats, the Romantic poets, and Transcendentalist thinkers, along with figures from Bechdel’s life.
On this journey, Bechdel uses exercise to explore bigger subjects, digging at the question of why we exercise, which can be extended to why we do anything. Organized by decade, this is a book of substance and plenty of style, with Bechdel’s trademark precise drawings enlivened by her partner artist Holly Rae Taylor’s brushstrokes of vivid color. As much as I loved her previous two memoirs, they dealt with pretty heavy subjects, and The Secret to Superhuman Strength, while just as thoughtfully crafted as any of her other works, is a bit lighter, making it a perfect candidate for a great summer read.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
Are you interested in learning French, or another language, but find traditional tutorials tedious?
Consider Mango Premiere, an online language learning system that offers instruction through film for select languages. While enjoying a movie you can familiarize yourself with your chosen language by studying the dialogue while also focusing on grammar, vocabulary, phrases, and culture.
Customize your learning experience by viewing the film in “Movie mode,” in which you can view the movie with your choice of subtitles (English, the language you are learning, or both at the same time).
Choose “Engage mode” for an in-depth scene exploration. In this mode, you begin with a Scene Introduction, an overview of what to expect in the coming scene. Next, you have the option of scrolling through Words You May Encounter and Cultural Notes. After viewing the scene you may click on to a Followup, a detailed breakdown of the scene with grammar and cultural notes. The subtitles are enhanced by phonetic pop-ups and Mango’s semantic color mapping, which demonstrates connections between the learner’s target and native language.
A visualization of Mango’s semantic color mapping.
While exploring the features of Mango Premiere, I watched Around a Small Mountain (or 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup), a 2009 French drama by director Jacques Rivette (one of the founders of the French New Wave) featuring Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto. With a cast of characters whose lives revolve around a travelling circus, the film is very dialogue-driven and I felt that the Engage Mode features helped me achieve a more nuanced understanding of the story.
There are more than 70 languages you can learn on Mango, with movies currently available for the following languages:
English (for Spanish speakers)
French
Spanish (Latin America)
Italian
Chinese (Mandarin)
German
Hopefully Mango will expand its Premiere services to include films in more languages. I for one may be more motivated to brush up on my Korean language skills if I can do so while watching a fun K-drama.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
“So good. It’s so good.” This was the recommendation from my discriminating and well-read colleague at Miller Branch. I had already gravitated toward this novel based on the cover art alone. The royal blue background offsets bold canary yellow text: The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. The all caps letters hinting at what a “louding voice” might look like when spelled out. The artwork appears to be a collage, with red paper flowers adorned with petals cut from the pages of a book, what appears to be a dictionary. Trace the flowers down to their stems and they seem to be blooming from the silhouette of a young woman. We see little else but her elegant profile, pitch black but for some bursts of fuchsia and crimson highlighting her features and hair, her headband and clothing vivid strips resembling Ankara fabric. Her expression is unreadable. Studying this striking cover, I wondered what exactly this girl had to say.
Ready to listen, I donned my earbuds and became quickly engaged by the sonorous voice of the audiobook’s narrator Adjoa Andoh, a veteran of British stage and screen and narrator of many audiobooks. The prologue, an excerpt from the “The Book of Nigerian Facts,” highlights the persistence of widespread poverty in Nigeria despite being it the richest country in Africa due to being a major crude oil exporter. I continued to listen as the first chapter began and I was confronted with a different voice (though the same reader), that of the main character, Adunni. After her father beckons her to come close, the fourteen year-old reflects:
“I know he want to tell me something bad. I can see it inside his eyes; his eyesballs have the dull of a brown stone that been sitting inside hot sun for too long. He have the same eyes when he was telling me, three years ago, that I must stop my educations. That time, I was the most old of all in my class and all the childrens was always calling me “Aunty.” I tell you true, the day I stop school and the day my mama was dead is the worst day of my life.”
Adunni speaks not in the pidgin English that is common in the author’s native Nigeria, but a broken English borne from Daré’s imagination. I admit that it took me several minutes to get used to this dialect but once I acclimated to Adunni’s voice I found myself enthralled by this tenacious and resilient young woman. Rich in determination but poor by birth and circumstance, she lacks what she most passionately desires—an education.
When the story begins young Adunni learns that her poor father has sold her into marriage with a prosperous and wretched old taxi driver named Morufu. After a few agonizing months as Morufu’s third wife, Adunni flees after a tragic event. She finds her way to bustling Lagos, where she is placed as a maid for a wealthy business owner named Big Madam, an imposing woman whose laugh, “sound like a rumble, a big rock rolling down a mountain.” While she labors around the clock as a domestic servant to Big Madam and her predatory deadbeat husband, Big Daddy, Adunni looks for opportunity wherever she can find it. With the help of Ms. Tia, a kind and well-connected woman, Adunni’s vision of a path toward independence becomes clearer. She begins to stake a place for her own future while paving a way for other young women and girls from small villages like her own. As her mother insisted before passing away in her forties, “your schooling is your voice.” Adunni took this advice to heart, forever insisting on her right to an education.
I found so much to admire in the character of Adunni, with her seemingly bottomless reserves of strength and optimism despite the ongoing trials that threaten to break her. This is a young woman whose dream of a better life will not be denied, her “louding voice” lifting not only herself up, but anyone willing to share in her story.
I’m so glad I took the time to listen.
Holly is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting, preferably with a strong cup of tea and Downton Abbey in the queue.
The first line comes from English post-punk band XTC’s 1981 song about what songwriter and frontman Andy Partridge considered “the hypocrisy of living in a so-called respectable neighborhood. It’s all talk behind twitching curtains.” The second lyric is from a track from Stevie Wonder’s 1972 album Talking Book. In the song, Wonder takes the white establishment (Big Brother) to task for only coming to the ghetto “to visit me ‘round election time.” He continues his indictment – “I don’t even have to do nothin’ to you” because, from offenses ranging from criminal neglect of its black citizens to having “killed all our leaders…you’ll cause your own country to fall.”
It is fitting that Lanahan chose these words and these voices to begin this story, as his narrative weaves together multiple perspectives but most closely follows the criss-crossing threads of two individuals, one black and one white.
Nicole Smith is a young black woman living with her family in a West Baltimore rowhome owned by her mother, Melinda. When we meet Nicole, she is twenty-five and is contemplating the crossing of a line—leaving her neighborhood (and family and community) behind in search of security and opportunity for herself and her six-year-old son, Joe. Though she is enrolled in Baltimore City Community College and is on a waitlist for affordable housing in the city, Nicole seems to be on an existential treadmill, running but getting nowhere fast. She’s heard of a place called Columbia, a planned community in Howard County, with a reputation for good schools, plenty of jobs, and safe streets. Could she make it there?
Mark Lange is a white man raised in the Baltimore suburbs who, after a spiritual reckoning in his late teens, embarks on a path of service informed by the teachings of Mississippi civil rights activist and Christian minister John M. Perkins, who argued that those who wanted to help communities in need must live among them. As Mark’s story begins to be told, he feels a gravitational pull from his comfortable suburban life in Bel Air toward Sandtown, a West Baltimore neighborhood where his best friend Alan Tibbels, a like-minded white Christian with a mission of racial reconciliation, relocated with his family. If he moves, would Mark prove to be just another “white savior” looking to appease his own guilt? Or would be able to form meaningful relationships and help foster change in an impoverished community?
In this meticulously researched book, Lanahan alternates the fascinating tales of Nicole and Joe with the complicated history of Baltimore’s segregation and the resulting devastating impact on its black communities. Having its genesis as a year-long multi-media series on inequality in the Baltimore area broadcast from September 28, 2012 to October 4, 2013 on WYPR, Maryland Public Radio, the depth and breadth of Lanahan’s reporting is detailed to an almost dizzying degree. But just when a reader’s brain might start to get overwhelmed by the minutiae of historical detail (as mine sometimes did), my attention would come swiftly back into focus as the humanity of Nicole and Mark’s stories propelled me through the book. The Lines Between Us should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the institutional forces that shape inequality in our region and for those whose understanding of their neighbor might require them to cross a line. And isn’t that most of us?
Join us: Author Works with Lawrence Lanahan Wednesday, January 12 from 7 – 8:30 pm In person, HCLS Central Branch Register at bit.ly/3pFTq3y
To learn more about the historical policies of redlining, visit the interactive exhibit currently at Central Branch. Undesign the Redline explores the history of structural racism and inequality, how these designs compounded each other from 1938 Redlining maps until today, and the national and local impacts. Join a guided tour on Wednesdays at 11 am and Saturdays at 2 pm.
Holly L. is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting and appreciates an audiobook with a good narrator.
Join us for a reindeer craft on Stress Free STEAM evening!
By Holly L.
One person’s trash….is another person’s CRAFT!
Holidays have you feeling stressed? Relieve some of that tension and join us for Stress Free STEAM for Adults on Thursday December 2 at 7 pm at HCLS Miller Branch. We will be making easy, seasonal upcycled crafts using everyday materials. Try your hand at some dazzling wall art, paper pillow boxes (perfect for small gifts), or a festive paper tree.
Paper pillow boxes like these made from recycled cardboard are the perfect container for small gifts.
All abilities welcome. Beginners and the non-crafty are encouraged to come. Materials provided.
Registration required. Register here or call 410.313.1950.
Also, did you know that you can access several crafty magazines such as HGTV,Simply Knitting, and Family Handyman online for free using your library card? Visit Overdrive to browse our complete collection.
Holly L. is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting and appreciates an audiobook with a good narrator.
Does the prospect of a second pandemic holiday season already have you on edge? Did you feel a pang of sadness when your kids aged out of the family craft classes? Would you like to unwind in a relaxed setting with some calming hands-on fun? Are these questions getting tedious?
If you answered yes to any of the above, please join us on at the Miller Branch on Thursday, November 4 at 7 pm for Stress-Free S.T.E.A.M. for adults. We will provide materials for three fun fall-themed crafts, including a terrific turkey pin, an awesome autumn leaf placemat, and a brilliant beaded harvest corncob.
Focus on one project or make a few, it’s up to you! No prior craft experience needed and all abilities welcome.
Registration required. Please register by clicking here or call 410.313.1950.
Holly L. is an Instructor and Research Specialist at the Miller Branch. She enjoys knitting and appreciates an audiobook with a good narrator.
CHAPTER CHATS 