What’s Happening at Cheshire Library in March

February 29, 2016February 24, 2016 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

Our South Asian Cultural Festival takes center stage in March, with more than a dozen programs this month celebrating the culture of South Asia. That’s in addition to our regular month of programs!

All About the Sari

Saturday Mar 5, 2016, 1:00 PM

Learn the history of the sari and see a demonstration on how to wear one.There will be a chance for audience members to try a sari on. Presented by Cheshire resident Uma Shankar. For female teens and adults. Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4.

Gandhi and the History of Nonviolent Politics

Monday Mar 7, 2016, 6:30 PM

Gandhi, the founder of the modern state of India, inspired movements for civil rights across the world. Join us for a presentation by Dr. Karuna Mantena of Yale University. Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4. This program is funded by CTHumanties.

Tuesday Movie Matinees

Tuesday Mar 8, 15, and 22, 1:00 PM

Join us for 3 films featuring South Asian themes, NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED:

Mar 8: The Lunchbox

Mar 15: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Mar 22: Slumdog Millionaire

A Brief History of Yoga in the West

Wednesday Mar 9, 2016, 6:30 PM

Danielle Casioppo, a Yale Health Educator, will give a slide talk about the history of yoga in the West followed by a 30 minute class. Please wear comfortable clothing. Most exercises can be done in a chair and yoga mats are optional. Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4.

Women Writing India: Home and the World

Thursday Mar 10, 2016, 6:30 PM

Dr. Geetanjali Singh Chanda, of Yale University, will lead a discussion of two popular novels, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Copies the these books are available at the library. Registration for this program is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4. This program is funded by CTHumanities.

Movie: Zokkomon

Wednesday Mar 16, 2016, 4:00 – 6:00 PM

Please join us for the first live-action film from Disney Studios India “designed to give Indian kids their first superhero.” Abandoned by his heartless uncle (Anupam Kher) and aided by a street artist (Manjari Fadnis), an orphan (Darsheel Safary) discovers his inner hero. Rated PG. Following the film we’ll have snacks and a lively discussion with Hetal Radia! For grades 1-8, NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.

India Travelogue: Sharing the Spirit of India

Wednesday Mar 16, 2016, 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Visit with John McClain for an adventure through India. Come experience the sights and sounds of this beautiful and complex country- see India through an authentic and vivid lens, to which no travel book can compare! Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4.

Stan Scott and the Rangila Ensemble

Saturday Mar 19, 2016, 2:00 – 3:00 PM

This concert will feature a broad range of styles, including the enchanting melodies and rhythms of Indian classical music, folk songs celebrating love, work, social life and worship in Bengal, Bangladesh, Assam and Meghalaya, and devotional songs of the great medieval Hindi poets. The lively rhythms of Indian folk songs provide a complementary contrast to the contemplative mood of Hindustani classical music. This program is funded by CTHumanities, NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.

Indian Cooking Demonstration

Wednesday Mar 23, 2016, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Madhu Gupta will introduce Indian cooking techniques, highlighting the regional differences in regards to spicing, flavors and recipes. Born in India, Madhu’s father’s career allowed the family to visit and experience the unique regions of India. She will introduce Indian cooking techniques to make simple salads, appetizers and a variety of curries and will demonstrate that Indian cooking is not always hot and spicy but that the flavor is determined by balancing the ingredients. Space is limited, and registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245 ext. 4.

A Celebration of Holi & Rangoli Craft

Thursday Mar 24, 2016, 4:00 – 6:00 PM

Please join us in celebrating Holi- the spring festival of colors! Staff from Artsplace will show us how to make rangoli, a decorative folk art of colorful patterns. For grades 1-6.
Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245.

Documentary Film: Meet the Patels

Thursday Mar 24, 2016, 6:30 PM

View this comedy documentary about Ravi Patel’s quest to find love, followed by a discussion led by Dr. Indira Karamcheti of Wesleyan University. Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245. This program is funded by CTHumanities.

Kite Making @ Artsplace

Wednesday Mar 30, 2016, 4:00 – 6:00 PM

Kite making, flying, and fighting are long-standing traditions in India, and the International Kite Festival (Uttarayan) held annually in Gujarat celebrates the coming of spring. Start off the new season by crafting your own! For grades 1-8. Registration is required, p lease register online or call the library at 203-272-2245.

NOTE: This event takes place at Artsplace, 1220 Waterbury Road, Cheshire, CT 06410.

Here Comes The Bride

February 1, 2016December 23, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

roses

When you think of February, you think Valentine’s Day. So it’s no surprise that February is National Weddings Month. More couples get engaged this month than any other and while it’s not a popular month for actual weddings, it is the month when all the planning starts.

Some fun facts:

Average engagement lasts 16 months.
Average engagement ring costs $4,411.
Average age of couple – Bride, 27 Groom, 29
Most popular months to marry are (in order) June, August, September, October, May.
Average number of guests at a wedding – 175.
Average cost of wedding – $26,000.

If you’re planning a wedding – (or are hoping to get engaged this month!) – the Cheshire Library has a wonderful section of books to help you plan.

A sampling:

Stylish Weddings: 50 simple ideas to make from top designers

Style me pretty wedding: inspiration & ideas for an unforgettable celebration

Do it for less! Weddings: how to create your dream wedding without breaking the bank

The Knot guide to destination weddings

The Knot complete guide to weddings in the real world

The Knot book of wedding flowers

Simple stunning weddings

Handcrafted weddings: over 100 projects & ideas for personalizing your wedding

Simple Stunning Wedding Flowers

The Best Wedding Reception Ever!

For additional books, click here.

And if you just want to snuggle on the couch with your favorite beverage and just read about weddings, here are a few fiction titles for you to enjoy.

Four Weddings and a Fireman – Jennifer Bernard – Firefighter Derek “Vader” Brown is determined to get to the bottom of Cherie Harper’s ambivalence toward him, while Cherie fights to keep a nightmare from the past from interfering with her passion for Derek.

Beautiful Day – Elin Hilderbrand – Gathering on Nantucket for a wedding planned to the letter by the bride’s late mother, the Carmichaels and the Grahams hide their scandal-ridden, crumbling lives from the blissfully unaware happy couple.

The Christmas Wedding – James Patterson – Relates the story of Gaby Summerhill, a widow planning a holiday wedding to a groom whose identity remains a surprise to her four children.

Vision in White – Nora Roberts – Wedding photographer Mackensie “Mac” Elliot falls into the arms of safe, stable English teacher Carter Maguire as relief from the onslaught of bridezillas, but soon begins to wonder if what began as a casual fling could blossom into her own happy ending.

A Wedding in December – Anita Shreve – Gathering to attend a wedding in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, seven former classmates find the reunion marked by the death of a spouse, a traumatic past event, a shocking secret, and health issues.

A Common Life: the wedding story – Jan Karon – The creator of the Mitford stories goes back through time to relate the wedding of Father Tim Kavanagh to Cynthia Coppersmith.

Late for the Wedding – Amanda Quick – Regency sleuths Lavinia Lake and Tobias March stumble into the middle of a deadly mystery as they become caught up in the search for a killer who targets wealthy older men on the brink of marrying beautiful, much younger women.

The Wedding Quilt – Jennifer Chiaverini – Meditating on the weddings she has attended in Elm Creek Manor throughout the years on the morning of her daughter’s wedding day, Sarah McClure evaluates the symbolic features on a wedding quilt designed to display the signatures of beloved guests.

Or how about enjoying a wedding movie? Check out these titles:

My Big Fat Greek Wedding – A young Greek-American woman, changes her life for the better and falls in love with a non-Greek man; now that she has found happiness, she must learn to come terms with her heritage while attempting to get her family to accept her new love.

Rachel Getting Married – A young woman who has been in and out of rehab for years returns home for her sister’s wedding.

Made of Honor – Tom and Hannah have been best friends since college, but when Hannah returns from a trip engaged to another man, Tom realizes he is in love with her and will do everything he can to win her heart.

The Hangover – Doug and his groomsmen head to Vegas for his bachelor party, but when they wake up the next morning with the worst hangovers they have ever had, they realize Doug is missing and no one can recall the events of the past twelve hours.

The Wedding Planner – When a wedding planner falls in love with one of her biggest clients, she must decide whether to plan his wedding, or steal his heart.

Rumor Has It – Upon returning home for her sister’s wedding, Sarah Huttinger discovers that her family may have been the inspiration for the novel behind the classic movie “The Graduate”.

Monsoon Wedding – Love, lust and hope envelop an upper middle-class Indian family and their world-wide guests as they celebrate for four days the arranged marriage of their daughter to an East Indian man from Texas.

The Wedding Date – Unable to deal with having been dumped by the best man at her sister’s future wedding, a young woman hires an escort to act as her boyfriend at the event.

About Schmidt – Warren Schmidt copes with the boredom of retirement, the devastating loss of his wife, and his daughter’s new fiancee.

Happy planning! Happy reading! Happy watching!

Books Coming to the Big Screen in the 2016

January 11, 2016December 11, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / 2 Comments

Books adaptations have been big hits in the movie theaters over the last few years, so is it any wonder that the number of books heading to the big screen seem to be on the rise? There are a number of great books making their way to the big screen again this year, some of which I am very excited to see. Here are some of the books-to-movies I am most excited about for 2016. I have included the current scheduled release date for each film, which is subject to change.

You might want to put the books on hold now if you want to beat the rush to read them (or watch previous versions of favorites) before watching the new releases in the theater! I have linked each title to the available versions that our library currently owns.

Children
Alice Through the Looking Glass (May 27, 2016)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (November 18, 2016)
The Jungle Book (April 15, 2016)
The BFG (July 1, 2016)
The Little Prince (March 18, 2016)
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (October 7, 2016)
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson (February 16, 2016)

Young Adult
Allegiant (March 18, 2016)
The 5th Wave (January 15, 2016)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (December 25, 2016)
Delirium (September 30, 2016)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (October 14, 2016)
Let It Snow by John Green (December 9, 2016)

Adult
The Finest Hours (January 29, 2016)
The Girl on the Train (October 7, 2016)
The Shack (August 12, 2016)
Tarzan (July 1, 2016)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (February 5, 2016)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (October 21, 2016)
The Lost City of Z by David Grann (No Date Given 2016)

Rocking Rock Opera

January 5, 2016December 30, 2015 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Even in High Society, there aren’t many faster ways to clear a room politely than bring up the subject of Opera. Everyone gives a nod, a panicked smile, and then slowly backs out, unable to name a single one. If we took a poll, most people would probably say their exposure to opera consists of what they learned from Bugs Bunny http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mjbrz, or perhaps Animaniacs. Don’t worry, I’m not going to change your mind. You won’t get me to sit through an entire one, either, except maybe Aida. Any play with live elephants and camels is awesome.

So, what IS opera? Opera is a play, usually in acts, where all the dialogue is sung in an operatic style (and you know what that sounds like). The music is big, heavy, foreign, and so are the singers. Operetta is still an opera but usually much shorter, and they are often comedies. A musical is just a play where people burst into songs, or songs and dance now and then.

So where does Les Miserables fall? I liked that movie, and I hate opera! Les Mis is a bone of contention. It is not an opera, because the songs are not sung in the operatic style. It’s more than a musical, because all the dialogue is sung and there’s certainly nothing to dance about, like Oliver! dreaming of a real meal. So at best, for lack of a better term, the experts call Les Mis a sung-through, meaning there is some non-song dialogue, but the lines are sung without being part of a song (think of Javert and Jean Valjean’s confrontation in singsong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WSysB5vKM). Some call Les Mis a “popera,” or pop-opera, but those aren’t exactly songs that will climb record charts, and others try to call it a rock-opera, which it is also definitely not.

So what then IS rock opera? At some point in your life, on some radio station, you’ve heard a version of “Pinball Wizard,” or “We Don’t Need No Education” (the technical title is “Another Brick in the Wall part 2”). Those songs come from the two most well-known Rock Operas, Tommy, and The Wall. A rock opera consists of a full-length story in which the story is told through song, but the music is entirely modern and popular.

Tommy, by The Who, was the first work known as Rock Opera (1969). Purists will say it is not opera because it is not sung in opera fashion; the fact remains, it is a full story told entirely in song. In short, as a child, Tommy witnesses his father kill his mother’s boyfriend, retreats into an autistic-like trance, and endures much abuse as his parents look for ways to break him free. They discover that, even though it doesn’t appear he can hear, speak, or see, he is a master at pinball, which they use to draw him out and return him to society. Yes, there are differences between the album, the play, and the movie version, but the flow of the story remains the same. The movie includes Tina Turner, Elton John, and Peter Frampton. ‘Nuff said.

Fastforward ten years. The Brits hit again, with the release of Pink Floyd’s The Wall in 1979. The Wall is a masterpiece of modern music, the story of a rock singer (Pinkerton Floyd) who builds a mental wall to insulate himself from the outside world, which he feels has abandoned him. The death of his father in WWII, his overbearing mother, his abusive teachers, his unfaithful wife are all bricks in his wall, until, isolated and alone, he festers until the court of his peers orders the wall be torn down and he be returned to the world. It’s a masterpiece of suffering, death, and rebirth, without a word of dialogue. The movie had mixed reviews, but remains faithful to the vision. Check out the concert version here.

A third, more modern piece (2004) that can be considered Rock Opera is Green Day’s American Idiot, which chronicles the “disillusionment and dissent experienced by (Jesus of Suburbia) a generation which came of age during various turmoil including the Iraq War.” What is it with wars creating Opera? Admittedly heavily influenced by The Who, the only real difference I see with American Idiot from its predecessors is it seems to be a LOT LOUDER. Songs like “Wake Me Up When September Comes” are just as worthy and beautiful.

Sure, some people try to lump Ziggy Stardust in here, and Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but there is a difference between a “concept” album and a rock opera. Think of a concept album as a book of short stories around a theme, whereas a rock opera is an entire novel.

So if ladies in Viking horns screeching for the high notes aren’t your style, try a rock opera. Drama, intrigue, murder, drug addiction, infidelity, and rebirth, all set to some pretty catchy music – and sometimes a pretty good movie, too. What more can you ask for?

What’s Happening at Cheshire Library in January

December 30, 2015December 23, 2015 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

Happy New Year! We’ve got month full of entertainment, education and enrichment to start the year off right!

The Manners of Downton Abbey

Thursday Jan 7, 2016, 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Part 1 of our 3-part film series for fans of the PBS series Downton Abbey. What goes on behind-the-scenes to get the manners of 1900s Britain exactly right on Downton Abbey? Discover how the aristocratic set dined and dressed, how they married and made money, how they interacted with the servants (and the servants interacted with each other), and above all why they behaved as they did. Illustrated with memorable moments from Downton Abbey, the program is a treat for fans and anyone fascinated with the customs of early 1900s Britain. Please register on our website.

Music Together Demo

Friday Jan 8, 2016, 11:00 AM

Music Together an internationally recognized early childhood music program for infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers, kindergartners, and the adults who love them. This research-based, developmentally appropriate early childhood music curriculum strongly encourages adult involvement and emphasizes actual music experiences rather than concepts about music. For ages newborn through 5 years old. Please register on our website.

Cajun Hobos

Sunday Jan 10, 2016, 2:00 PM

Chase away those post-holiday blues with the Cajun Hobos! The Cajun Hobos feature Alan Bradbury and Michelle Kaminsky, who have been playing Cajun music together in a number of bands (including Magnolia) for 25 years, along with Mark Wholley. Having learned from Louisiana’s finest, they are passionate about sharing their love of Cajun culture, music, and dances in New England. This concert is free and open to the public, no registration required.

College Financial Aid Seminar

Tuesday Jan 12, 2016, 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Jennifer Philips, former Assistant Director of Financial Aid at Fairfield University, will explain the various student loans, grants and scholarships available, the critical financial aid forms and deadlines, the various components of a financial aid offer and how to best compare and appeal offers in extenuating circumstances. Seating for this event is limited. Please register on our website or call 203-272-2245, ext. 4.

Secrets of Highclere Castle

Thursday Jan 14, 2016, 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Part 2of our 3-part film series for fans of the PBS series Downton Abbey. Join us for a documentary on a in-depth look at the history of England’s Highclere Castle. Go behind the scenes to the real owners and the history of this majestic estate. For centuries it has been the real-life home of the aristocratic Carnarvon family, and has entertained Kings and Queens of England along with a host of nobilities and celebrities. Known as “The Real Downton Abbey”, it is where much of the location scenes are filmed. Please register on our website.

Sing Me A Fairy Tale

Friday Jan 15, 2016, 11:00 – 11:45 AM
Musical storytelling using music, singing and dancing, rhythm activities, props and rhythm instruments. Songs and movement enable children to creatively explore a variety of themes from familiar stories like Goldilocks, Jack & the Beanstalk and the Three Little Pigs, in new imaginative and exciting ways. Interactive family style program geared toward the developmental stages of children from 2 to 7 years. (Infants and older siblings are also welcome). Please register on our website.

The Secret Garden

Thursday Jan 21, 2016, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Join us for the last installment of a 3 part movie series for fans of Downton Abbey. Can you not get enough of Highclere Castle, the setting for Downton Abbey? Join us for the Secret Garden set at Highclere castle in the early 1900’s. Mary Lennox, a spoiled young British girl orphaned by an Indian epidemic, comes to live at Misselthwaite Manor. She meets intriguing people and finds a mysterious garden. Please register on our website.

Move & Groove with Mr. Gym

Sunday Jan 24, 2016, 2:00 PM

Get physically fit through music and creative movement with “Mr. Gym”, a children’s singer and songwriter from Connecticut. Ages 3-8, No registration required.

Making Sense of Food Labels

Thursday Jan 28, 2016, 6:00 PM

Are you confused about food labels? Join us for a informative talk by Nancy Boudreau, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, where she will discuss:
* The Ingredient List
* The Nutrition label on the back which lists the number of servings per package, amount of sugar, fat, sodium, etc.
* The Marketing claims on the front label. Natural, All Natural, Organic, Non-GMO, Grass Fed – what does it all mean?
* Tips for making healthy choices. Please register on our website.

Self-Defense for Women

Saturday Jan 30, 2016, 2:00 – 3:30 PM

A class for women ages 14 and older taught by Family Martial Arts and Fitness of Cheshire. No experience necessary! What you will learn:
– Real world defense for the average person
– How to use the strength of your body to defeat even the strongest of attackers
– Learn the psychology of the attacker and how to use it against them
– Gain confidence in yourself and your abilities
This will be a hands-on class so wear comfortable clothing. Please register on our website.