test blog 8

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times? Perhaps not as dramatic as all that, but yesterday was a tale of two days, for sure. We had a leisurely morning -- well, when you barely sleep, all mornings seem long -- and drove the dogs over to Salty Dog , the local daycare and boarding spot. When I made the arrangements, Jaime was the opposite of every doggie daycare place I've spoken with in any city. She was so totally laid back. Whatever day, whatever hour, just come on by. She didn't ask for vaccination certificates or do an aggression test. She does boarding as needed, grooming if you want it, she raises Husky puppies, and she's open 24/7 to accept rescues, which she tries to rehome, but will keep if need be.  We followed signs up a rutted mountain road -- perhaps this is why she does pick-up and drop-off? -- until the sound of barking told us we were in the right place. There was a large collection of outdoor kennels -- clearly homemade, irregularly shaped, some...

This story in The New York Times made me miss New York City more than anything has in a very long time.  All over the city, artists have created murals protest racism and police abuse. This critic surveys the murals , and compares them to the Neolithic cave art in the caves of France and Spain. We saw cave art in Spain (stories here and here , but no pictures), something that I had longed to do ever since I first knew they existed. It was a peak travel experience for me. I love street art, and I love New York, and I love that someone links these things together.

I was so very sad to hear that the artist Christo has died at the age of 84. I felt so incredibly fortunate to still be living in NYC when The Gates was there. I went through the entire installation multiple times, when very few people were there -- once in the snow, and once when Christo and Jeanne-Claude were walking through. I have tons of photos... but they're all on film and in prints! Of course Christo and Jeanne-Claude were much more than The Gates! But that is where my life intersected with their art, and I'm very grateful for it. Christo was such a giving and expansive artist. There will never be another. Our autographed poster from The Gates

I'm supposed to be writing about the Jackie Robinson biography, which I finished weeks ago, but so far I haven't been motivated to do so. I finished another Wallander mystery -- my "in between" book -- but the next bio on my list , the new one about Frederick Douglass, hasn't come in yet. So I looked for something on my own bookshelf that I've been meaning to read, and found this: Solitary Raven: The Essential Writings of Bill Reid . It is fascinating, and by coincidence, feels very relevant. We visited Vancouver for the first time in 2016, and I spent a morning enraptured in the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art , still completely innocent of the idea of moving to the west coast.* I love Reid's work, and wanted a meaningful souvenir from the visit. Knowing that Reid was a writer and CBC host before his first major sculpture commission, I purchased this book. Reid's father was an American of European ancestry, and his mother was Haida -- a fact ...

At the Port Hardy Library, we've been hosting visits from the local First Nations school, from the Gwa'sala-Nakwaxda'xw  Nations. (That is pronounced GWA-sala Nak-wah-da.) The children have been engaged and enthusiastic, and although my contact with them is brief, I'm enjoying it so much. Of course, I'm especially excited about strenthening the library connection for tweens and teens. We've been working on digital literacy, which I've made into a bingo game. (Librarians will turn anything into bingo.) It's been touching to see our regular customers -- many of whom are from the same community -- graciously forego some computer time to accommodate the students. Last week, I attended an event at the Gwa'sala Nakwaxda'xw School for the first time. There's a lot of poverty among Indigenous communities, and the reserve in Port Hardy reflects that, a sad reminder that the legacy of colonization is with us every day. Knowing this, I was unprepared fo...

You can read the story of how we got these: here . This, below, is the smaller painting that the salesman added to the pot after the price would budge no further. It is possibly painted on banana leaf, a cheaper and less durable papyrus substitute. There is also a third, yet smaller painting, also "thrown in," but not display quality or worth framing. The celery-looking stuff is fresh papyrus. We watched Papyrus Guy make a small sheet. That's our painting behind them!

Our last day in Vancouver was a full one. It included a library, great art, a meet-up with an activist-friend... and noodles! I didn't want another breakfast at the hotel, so we poked around a bit online and found something nearby. This place didn't open til 10:00 (I guess hipsters don't wake up early) but we noticed the Acme Cafe next door. It looks like a diner - an authentic diner, not a fake retro ironic diner - but with a contemporary menu. The food was very good - I had a truly excellent frittata with portobello mushrooms - but the best treat came with the bill. We unintentionally qualified for the early-bird special: between 8 and 9:00, buy one breakfast, get another free. A BOGO breakfast? What fun! And an amazing deal, as the food is outstanding and not cheap.. After breakfast we walked to the Vancouver Public Library , the Central branch known for its distinctive look . The library hadn't opened yet and there was the usual crowd waiting to get in. Anyone who...

In the prologue to  Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House , author Franklin Toker writes, "Put this book down now if you can't live without the old myths about Fallingwater. But take comfort in the fact that a Fallingwater history shorn of miracles can still be thrilling." Toker examines those old myths, and one by one, he uses his extensive and impeccable research to dismantle them. The truth, for me, was far more interesting. I visited Fallingwater in 1999, and although I have a great interest in architecture and am captivated by that house, I thought a biography of a single building might be too detailed for my level of interest. I was wrong. The book does contain quite a lot of detail. But through that detail, and through his nearly palpable passion for his material, the author reveals the magnificence of Fallingwater and explicates the full depth of its meaning. Toker weaves a social and cultural history o...

Last week I attended " R.A. in a Day ," an annual one-day mini-conference on readers' advisory - that is, finding books for readers. It happens that the manager of my own " Readers' Den " department is one of the principal hosts of the conference, and the Mississauga Library was well-represented in the audience. More than 100 people attended from libraries throughout southern Ontario. It was a joy to spend the day focusing on the singular pleasures of reading and the experience of people who read. Part of what makes doing readers' advisory fun is that you're already talking to a reader. You're not trying to convince anyone to read; you're a bridge between a reader and books. There are more passive forms of RA, such as book displays. But the active, one-on-one RA that this conference focuses on is - as you know - a part of my job that I really enjoy. I'll highlight three speakers from the event. Catherine Sheldrick Ross, into the minds o...

In September my mother was here for her annual visit. I always plan some art or cultural attraction for us to take in. This time she was recovering from some knee surgery, so major walking in Toronto was out. On a previous visit , we had already done most of the cultural attractions in Mississauga - or so we thought. I'm pleased to say that the west-end suburbs was up to the challenge. At the Art Gallery of Mississauga , we saw a fascinating exhibit on the Sahmat Collective , a group of artists in India who use street art to challenge religious and sectarian intolerance. The AGM itself is a small but lovely space housed in City Hall.  A colleague suggested a fibre-art show at the Art Gallery of Burlington . My mom loves any kind of craft or handwork, so this was a great fit. The Burlington space has an excellent street presence near the waterfront, something the poor AGM can only dream of.  The highlight of our cultural tour was a visit to the enormous mandir, or Hindu temple,...

Central Library at National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City While I wait impatiently to post some exciting news, please enjoy these photos of amazing libraries all over the world . I've seen six on this list: New York Public Library, Butler Library at Columbia University, Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library at University of Toronto, Trinity College in Dublin, Central Library at University of Mexico (from the outside only), and Los Angeles Central Library. Library photos from BuzzFeed.

Two obituary posts in a row, and I didn't even mention Tony Gwynn. My favourite cartoonist, Charles Barsotti, has died from cancer at the age of 80. My favourite Barsotti character is, of course, The Pup. The Pup often saw his therapist. And sometimes lawyers were involved. But Barsotti had a political side, too. This cartoon has pride of place on my desk, next to Mankoff's "...assuming the FBI is making copies ." Here's another great political cartoon. I'm so pleased that I emailed with Charles Barsotti some years back, after ordering some goodies from his website . If you love someone's work, please let her or him know. You might imagine that successful artists or writers know how much we enjoy their work, but in my experience, people are so pleased to hear from fans. Charles Barsotti's obituary in the New York Times  and Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker , on Barsotti .

Ruby Dee was a towering figure in the American theatre. She was a great actor, a poet, playwright, and screenwriter, and a steadfast voice for equality. Along with the actor Ossie Davis, her husband of nearly 60 years, Dee never stopped campaigning for full civil rights for all people. Dee and Davis' marriage was something to marvel at and to emulate, a partnership, as the New York Times obit puts it, that was "romantic, familial, professional, artistic and political". Dee grew up in Harlem, performed in many Broadway plays, and was a quintessential New Yorker. On Friday, the marquee lights on Broadway theatres were darkened for one minute in her honour.

The Brockway family, 2013 I want to tell you about an exciting venture: an opportunity to help make art more accessible for all, to help a low-income woman start her own business, and to help the family of an Iraq War resister, all at the same time. I hope you'll read about BrokenArt Mosaics and share Ashlea Brockway's crowd-funding page . Wmtc readers may remember my posts about the Brockway family. Jeremy Brockway is an Iraq War veteran with severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Denied medical leave and unable to return to combat, Jeremy and his family came to Canada. Wmtc and Joy of Sox helped raise funds for the Brockways to adopt a service dog. I've written about the Brockways several times: here , here , and here , among other posts. You already know my feelings about war resisters and people who struggle with mental illness. But in my zeal to share those stories, I may have shortchanged the real hero of the Brockway story, the head of the family, Ashlea Brockway. I ...

We slept wonderfully in our beautiful little cabin, and the following morning we waited to see the other Canadians emerge from breakfast before we ventured out. I was amazed that my mother also didn't like them: she is so much friendlier and less curmudgeonly than me. We ran into them briefly, and we both had the distinct impression that they had been waiting to see us before they left. And there's Elisabeth, wearing a Maple Leaf pin! These people must travel with a bag of Maple Leaf pins to distribute! Yikes. Breakfast was the usual deliciousness of mini baguettes, croissants, homemade jams, butter and cheese, and this one included apple cake and chocolate cake. I cut a slice of each for Connie and she did not protest! We asked Elisabeth to take a picture of us together and I got a few of the garden and of our host. Elisabeth called a taxi and he took us right to the restaurant, where the polite and attentive Mathieu took our suitcases and said he would see us for lunch. The r...

My plan for Rouen was a bit more complicated than it had to be. I was reasonably certain it would prove well worth it. There are many hotel options in Rouen, but they all left me unimpressed, mostly chain hotels or what sounded like dumps. I thought for the final night of our trip, we should do something special. I booked a room and dinner at a French country home about 25 minutes out of Rouen. My experience staying at French country homes has been very special, and I knew my mother would love it. I prepared her for the transportation issues, and hoped for the best. Our plan upon arriving in Rouen was to see if there is a consigne in the train station - a place where we could check our luggage while we enjoyed Rouen on our last day (which is tomorrow). No bag check. Amazingly, some of the Paris stations still have them, but many cities no longer do, for "security" reasons. We took a cab from the station to La Parenthese Normand , exactly as long (25 minutes) and at exactly t...