Staff Picks

Happy Memorial Day, such as it is. The day that is set aside for honoring and mourning Americans who have died in military service is often celebrated as the unofficial start of summer and a three-day weekend for many of us. This year, it comes as the number of Americans dead from the pandemic reached nearly 100,000, many of whom died in service administering care to others. Many businesses, especially here in Maine, where the summer tourism season brings in major revenue, may not even open, and those that do will not serve the volumes they need to survive. Even for those of us who look forward to Memorial Day just for an extra day off, this year the holiday will not be all that different from every other day of the last two months. Strange days, indeed.

I read a thought that originated with C.S. Lewis and took a roundabout path to me in an essay, and it goes something like this: catastrophes such as war (and pandemics) lay bare the permanent human condition, which is to live in the shadow of certain death, but attention to cultural pursuits (and fun and pleasure, as you might associate with a summer vacation or a day off) is also part of what makes us human.

The library will reopen soon, and the people in our town will be able to resume pursuing the culture we bring you. For now, remember those lost, and try to enjoy yourself a little.

At one of our recent meetings, we were discussing the possibility of hosting online author talks this summer, now that we have all gotten used to Zoom. Other libraries and several bookstores have been hosting such online events for the past few months. Here are a few of them:

• Book Passage is a store in the Bay Area of California that has had a number of authors give talks. Register ahead of time to view live or to view recordings anytime.
• Politics & Prose is a bookstore near where I lived in Washington, D.C. They had authors come and talk every single day, and I sometimes attended more than once a week. They have also moved their events online. View their calendar to watch live, or watch recordings available anytime. (P&P is connected to MML in another way. Do you know how?)
• Print: A Bookstore is located at the corner of Congress and India Streets in Portland, and they have also moved their author talks online. View their calendar to watch live.

A quick Google search gave me results of other stores with online live events, like City Lights in San Francisco, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, and Literati in Ann Arbor.

While the library has been closed, I hope many of you readers have taken the opportunity to buy books from one of the local bookstores nearby, many of whom are still selling for delivery or pickup. Support your local bookstore!

I admit that I haven’t been going to very many rock concerts lately. Getting older has been one reason, but having little kids has been the bigger reason. So it hadn’t even crossed my mind that the kind of concerts I have spent a lot of my time at, whether indoors or outdoors, packed up against thousands of other people, are not going to happen for anyone this year.

A friend of mine, with whom I have attended many-a-concert, sent me this interview with a pessimistic concert promoter with the subject line, “This is depressing.” The same night he sent it, I just so happened to come across this piece in the Atlantic by rock star Dave Grohl, who also laments prospect of a concert-free summer but maintains that the spirit that makes a good concert so much fun will still be there when all this is over.

Performers who still want to perform have managed to out there on the Internet. The latest series I have discovered comes Rolling Stone magazine and IGTV (which I gather is the Instagram equivalent to Facebook Live [but doesn’t Facebook own Instagram?]). They call it “In My Room.” The first one from March 18 is by the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, appropriately enough. NPR has been continuing their Tiny Desk Concerts in a similar fashion. The intimacy of seeing people perform in their own houses is cool, but it is no substitute for a big, loud, live event.

We put out a bird feeder a couple of weeks ago. It took the birds a few days before word began to spread among them that there was a new place to eat in the neighborhood. My daughters have been enjoying seeing birds right out our window, and I have been enjoying how much they enjoy them. Together we have been enjoying learning about birds from books and by using the Merlin Bird ID app on my phone to listen to the songs of birds and look at the spectrograms of those songs that we read about. (It’s a pretty hefty app, so make sure there’s enough space on your device before you download it.) It comes from the Ornithology Lab at Cornell University. Birders probably already know about this resource, but anyone interested learning more about birds will have a lot to on this site. The online courses they offer in the Bird Academy are expensive, but there are also videos, free recordings of lectures, and games to help novice birders of all ages learn to identify birds. And the Macaulay Library has almost 20 million photos, videos, and audio clips for you to explore.

This post was inspired by an article in the NY Times this weekend: 7 Tips for Watching Birds During the Spring Lockdown.

By now you’ve probably of the historic week at the Supreme Court of the US. Due to COVID-19, the justices have agreed to hear oral arguments via teleconference, and although audio recordings have always been available at the end of every week, this has been the first time the public has been allowed to listen to oral arguments live as they are happening. They will stream live them this week as well. Listen on C-SPAN starting Monday at 10am.

I listened to a discussion of the live format and a deep dive into one of last week’s cases from Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick and the New York Times‘ Linda Greenhouse on the Amicus podcast.