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MONTHLY THEME: A MOVEABLE FEAST

A Moveable Feast: Feast on humor, poetry, art, music, fun, travel...treats for your heart & soul. Enjoy all you want! Exercise optional.




Monty Python Live! by Graham Chapman

A Private Word to the Reader. You are currently holding in your hand . . . well, actually, God knows what you are holding in your hand, you are after all adults, and what you hold in your own right hand is entirely up to you . . .

Anyway, what you are about to read-or have read to you-is a new book that is the first active collaboration of the Monty Python chaps for many, many years. In fact, the first book written and produced by the Pythons, themselves, since 1979. No, they are not all dead. Okay, some of them have been a bit quiet recently, and one or two have DNR notes by their bedsides, but the point is five of them are still technically alive and that, if not exactly cause for rejoicing, may well be cause for a new book. And this is it!

So hold whatever you like in your hand while you read this book. Because laughter is jolly good for you. Even if it can make you blind.

~Summary courtesy of The Pythons. Request this title online

Selected Poems by Wallace Stevens

A beautiful new edition of the work of Wallace Stevens, a founding father of contemporary American poetry, with a dazzling range of work that is at once emotional and intellectual. Stevens has written more persuasively than any other poet about the significance of poetry itself in everyday life.

This rich and thorough selection draws us in to “The Emperor of Ice Cream," “Sunday Morning,” “The Idea of Order at Key West,” “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” to name only a few. Experience a poet who calls us to a higher music and to a deeper understanding of our vast and inarticulate interior world.

This essential volume for all readers reminds us of Stevens’s nearly unparalleled contribution to the art form and his unending ability to puzzle, fascinate, and delight us.

~Summary courtesy of bn.com Request this title online

John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures by Stephen Addiss

Known best for his music and performances, John Cage also painted and wrote extensively. Zen Buddhism influenced his approach to his work—nature as a path to self, collaboration in performance and happenstance in composition. The art and poetry in this book represent a collaboration both accidental and deliberate between Cage, Addiss and Kass. Artist Kass and artist/composer Addiss ordered the works into a sequence, then Addiss culled Cage's writings to create a cutup or recomposition of found words and phrases into a new work. Cage recognized the importance of the remix long before it became fashionable. The accidental circumstances of this work's assemblage doesn't diminish its charm or delicacy. The introductory material provides essential context, but the best approach may be to read and view the work, read the essays, then review the piece again. Addiss and Kass prove the continuing relevance of the tradition of ox-herding as a format for teaching and connecting the heart to the mind. 50 color and 12 b&w illus.

~Summary courtesy of Publishers Weekly. Request this title online

The Mostly Mozart guide to Mozart by Carl Vigeland

The Mostly Mozart Guide to Mozart is an accessible, insightful, and entertaining resource for music lovers looking for a deeper understanding of the genius of Mozart. It combines a brief and revealing account of his life and times with a look at his major compositions. You'll also discover accounts of major performances, fascinating anecdotes about Mozart and his works, comments from artists past and present, and tips on what to listen for when you listen to Mozart. And, a selected discography will help you develop a fantastic collection of recordings by the finest modern musicians playing Mozart's greatest music.

Filled with insightful quotes from fellow composers, critics, and Mozart admirers, as well as informative illustrations. The Mostly Mozart Guide to Mozart answers all of your questions about this transcendent genius and his music, and probably some you never thought to ask.

~Summary courtesy of bn.com Request this title online

Eiffel's Tower and the World's Fair where Buffalo Bill beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison became a Count by Jill Jonnes

A colorful cast of characters descended on Paris for the 1889 World's Fair, and Jonnes offers an atmospheric overview of the celebrities who made belle époque Paris their stage during the memorable event. Annie Oakley amazed crowds with her precisely executed shots. Thomas Edison, a master at promoting both himself and modern technology, chafed at the leisurely French way of life, delighted the masses with his phonograph and chatted with Louis Pasteur at his institute. Paul Gauguin was enthralled by a troupe of Javanese temple dancers and miffed that the Americans only intended to exhibit 17 of his 27 etchings, while James McNeill Whistler, who delighted in provocations and feuds, decamped to the British, who displayed even fewer of his works. The fair's undisputed main attraction both at the fair and in Jonnes's account, was the controversial wrought-iron tower of unprecedented height that, Jonnes says, appeals for both its technological genius and its "aerial playfulness and charm." It perfectly embodies "the triumph of the modern" that Jonnes so well captures in her sprightly account.

~Summary courtesy of Publishers Weekly. Request this title online

Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation by Gregory Maguire

This refreshing gallery of illustrations comes with an enthusiastic, expert docent. Maguire, a children's book authority and the author of Wicked (the basis for the hit musical), is an unabashed fan and friend, recounting his fortuitous first meeting with the maestro in 1977. Maguire arranges a bounty of favorite or rare illustrations into five playful and accessible essays. While constructing a "palace of muses" who influence Sendak, he offers wonderful side-by-side comparisons of Sendak's work and pieces by William Blake, Randolph Caldecott and Reginald Birch (a 1900 sketch of a boy in a wolf suit prefigures the artist's wild children). Maguire situates Sendak in children's literature history, revisiting figures profiled in Sendak's Caldecott & Co. and reproducing sequential plates from William Nicholson's seldom-seen The Pirate Twins and cartoonist Wilhelm Busch's 19th-century Max und Moritz. In the spirit of Sendak's "graphic anarchy" and theatrical composition of "the page as a stage," Maguire takes creative license too. He groups the materials thematically rather than chronologically, lists ten absolute must-haves to "drag from a burning museum," and-in a strangely thrilling capstone-recasts the familiar text of Where the Wild Things Are with alternative Sendak illustrations. This fitting and witty homage gives ample evidence for Maguire's contention that "the word genius isn't grade inflation."

~Summary courtesy of Publishers Weekly. Request this title online

The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren

For three days in August 1969, half a million music lovers happily braved torrential rains, endured lack of food and clean water, and grooved to the cosmic blues of the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, danced all night to the funky soul of Sly and the Family Stone and witnessed the birth of a new band called Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y., the first Aquarian Exposition, or the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, grew far beyond the expectations of its creators. In this lively memoir, Lang, one of the festival's cocreators, retells the story—some of it already well-known—of the halting steps that he and his partners took to develop the greatest rock concert of all time.

With a storyteller's verve and energy, Lang regales us with the tales of struggles with smalltown political leaders who opposed the festival, the kindness of Max Yasgur and the gargantuan task of feeding and taking care of a community the size of a large city. With the gritty insights of the ultimate insider, Lang weaves interviews with performers and others into his memoir, providing a glimpse of the madness, frustration, happiness and sheer euphoria that turned Woodstock into a memorable music festival.

~Summary courtesy of Publishers Weekly. Request this title online

Where can I find out more about Ernest Hemingway?

Interested in Hemingway? Researching him for a term paper? Look no further than the Online Databases offered free through our Web site to Tappan Library card holders.

Visit any of the following online databases and enter the keywords Ernest Hemingway:

Biography Resource Center is a comprehensive database of biographical information on more than a million people throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

Gale Expanded Academic ASAP meets research needs across all academic disciplines...from arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology. Access scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images. Delivers answers for both the novice and the experienced researcher.

NoveList allows readers to use a favorite author or title as a template to locate other authors and titles. 3 powerful search techniques to look for books by subject headings, reviews, and other fields in the title records.

To access any of these databases remotely, please visit our homepage at http://www.taplib.org from your PC, Mac, or mobile Internet browser. From the home page, click on Adult Services tab, then select Databases from the drop-down menu. If you need any assistance, please call the Library at 359-3877, and one of our trained librarians would be happy to walk you through the log-in and search process.

Travelling this winter? You may be interested in some Hemingway haunts.

- Hemingway House in Key West, Florida. Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote here for more than ten years. Calling Key West home, he found solace and great physical challenge in the turquoise waters that surround this tiny island. Wander through the lush grounds and enjoy the whimsy of the more than sixty cats that live here.

- Ernest Hemingway Birthplace and Museum in Oak Park, Illinois. The Ernest Hemingway Foundation fosters an understanding of the life and work of Ernest Hemingway with an emphasis on his early years in Oak Park.

- The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott, Arkansas
The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center includes a barn-studio associated with Ernest Hemingway and the family home of his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. Pauline's parents, Paul and Mary Pfeiffer, were prominent citizens of Northeast Arkansas and owned more than 60,000 acres of land. During the 1930s the barn was converted to a studio to give Hemingway privacy for writing while visiting Piggott. Portions of one of his most famous novels, A Farewell to Arms, and several short stories were written in this studio.

- Prefer to armchair travel? Go around the world on a Hemingway Adventure with Michael Palin. Follow Michael's journey place-by-place and page-by-page through his book or website:

- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure website

- Request Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure online.
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