Two prominent authors just died. Beverly Cleary was 104 and wrote a number of books I read when I was a kid. Larry McMurtry wrote some beloved Westerns, including The Last Picture Show, which was made into the film we recently discussed with the Merrill Film Society.
Do you have any thoughts or memories about these authors that you would like to share?
One of the films I was excited to watch when we got Kanopy was Milford Graves: Full Mantis, about the avant garde percussionist who also taught at Bennington College in Vermont. It was a NY Times Critics’ Pick in 2018, and I had considered buying a DVD for MML (and, by our belonging to Minerva, for the rest of Maine too), but I hesitated, fearing that I might be the only person to watch it. One good thing about Kanopy is that fans of slightly obscure films have a feast of riches while libraries who do not have literal riches do not have to choose between buying unpopular-but-good-or-important films and popular-but-lousy films. Striking a balance is a key to collection development. Now that our patrons have access to Kanopy, it tips that balance and sways purchasing decisions.
I learned this week that Milford Graves died February 12, 2021, just a few days after the death of his contemporary, pianist Chick Corea.
I subscribe to the NY Times Watching newsletter for suggestions and short write-ups of movies or TVs that might be worth checking out. The one that just arrived in my inbox suggests a couple of Clint Eastwood westerns, including A Fistful of Dollars, which we just discussed online with the Merrill Film Society. In case you didn’t know, in the absence of having programs in the library, we have taken our discussions online. We watch a film at home and then get together online to discuss. We meet every other Wednesday night. We are two thirds of the way through the “Dollars” Trilogy. Join us to talk about The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly February 10.
Newsletters such as this one are a relatively new way for readers to consume news that is growing in popularity. Especially if you like a particular writer, you try this this method of receiving news. There is no charge for NY Times newsletters, but there are newsletters that you can pay for, like the newsletters at substack.com, which is where you can subscribe to some very popular ones, such as historian (and at least part-time Mainer) Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.
Flipping through an old New Yorker the other day, I spied a blurb mentioning that Steve Shelley, the drummer in Sonic Youth, has been using his time in lockdown to upload live recordings of his band to Bandcamp, and it looks like their albums are there too.
Sonic Youth is surely not everybody’s cup of tea, but Bandcamp is great way to explore and discover music while supporting the musicians, especially newer, younger musicians. The internet upended the music business, and Bandcamp has been one of the better new models that are now competing for listeners’ ears and dollars. Last year, the live music industry collapsed too, but Bandcamp remains a way for creators to keep creating and keep making money doing it.
Here’s a fun new book that just hit our shelves: The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design.
Some of the minds behinds the popular design podcast 99% Invisible have put together a book that stops to examine some of the elements of a city that you have probably walked past a million times without considering the thought that went into designing them, and provides a little background on how they came about. Written in short chapters that are easy to consume, you can bounce around this book without reading it cover to cover and learn about the world hidden right in front of your face and under your feet.
