Author Paul McLean Will Talk about His Book "Blood Lines: Fatherhood, Faith and Love in the Time of Stem Cells," Tuesday, April 5 at 6:30 PM
What do you do when your seven-year-old daughter is diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood disease about which you know nothing and which requires making decisions that may determine her living or dying?Paul McLean, a former sportswriter at the Los Angeles Daily News, one-time arts editor at The Boston Herald and a stay-at-home father after his daughter was born, courageously fought to protect his child, preserve his sense of self even when it seemed everything changed by the day and, with his wife, made those difficult decisions. He also took meticulous notes, and wrote about his searing experience. Blood Lines: Fatherhood, Faith and Love in the Time of Stem Cells is the harrowing and honest account of who he once was --a regular guy with a regular family, and who he had to become as a result of the existential threat to his child.
McLean is the social media coordinator for the Harvard Community Ethics Committee (CEC), a former fellow in the Center for Bioethics program, a current community member of the Ethics Advisory Committee at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Research Subject Advocacy Board of Harvard Catalyst. He is also a social media contributor to The Hastings Center. He is a regular contributor to WBUR's on-line magazine, Cognoscenti.The South End Library is fully handicapped accessible. Seating is limited. The event is free. Books will be available for purchase, signing by the author, and borrow
The Easter Bunny Will Host the Eighth Annual South End Library Easter Egg Hunt at Library Park on Sunday, March 27, From 11 AM to 2 PM
After a one-year hiatus due to last year's snow deluge, the Eighth Annual South End Library Easter Egg Hunt is back on track for Sunday, March 27 from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The Easter Bunny is practicing hugs. The 1,400 eggs have been filled with chocolate, poems and knock-knock jokes. The Parks Department and FOSEL will have scrubbed Library Park clean. Police officers from Area D4 have been asked to be there to assist with street crossing, and if previous years' experience is a guide, they will be there. FOSEL will have created a separate area for little kids up to age four.
Do not be late: The gates to Library Park will open after a count-down of 20 seconds at 11:00 AM SHARP. It will all be over at 11:03 AM, if past experience still holds. There will be Easter baskets for any child who for forgot to bring one. Refreshments will be served.
A Sign of the Times: Overdose Prevention Training, How to Administer Narcan, and the Details of How to Call 3-1-1 Will Be Explained at the South End Library on Tuesday, March 22, 6:30 PM
Volunteers at the Roslindale branch of the BPL practicing overdose prevention and Narcan use
The South End branch of the BPL will host an overdose prevention seminar on Tuesday, March 22nd, at 6:30 PM. Berto Sanchez, manager of the Boston Public Health Commission's Addictions Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Support Services Services, will be there with his team to explain how to identify signs of an overdose and how to administer Narcan. Along with the overdose prevention training, the team will address details about calling 3-1-1 for needle pick-up and any other questions that may come up. Over the past year or two, needles have been found inside the library's restrooms, sometimes inside the pages of a book, in Library Park and in the surrounding neighborhood. Anne Smart, head librarian, who organized the seminar, has had to acquire needle-disposal boxes for the branch.
Berro Sanchez illustrates a point
Overdose prevention training began earlier this year when a member of the BPL's Roslindale library staff approached State Representative Liz Malia, who chairs the Legislature's Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, to see if she could help bring overdose-prevention training to the library. She could, the staff was told and, with the additional sponsorship of State Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez and Boston City Councilor Tim McCarthy, that session was held last February 11 at the Roslindale branch of the BPL, an event covered by the Roslindale Transcript.
The South End Library is fully handicapped accessible. Seating is limited. The event is free. We offer refreshments.
Acclaimed Harvard Sociologist and South End Resident, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Will Talk about Her Most Recent Book, "Exits: The Endings That Set Us Free," Tuesday, March 8 at 6:30 PM
Three years ago, when Harvard professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot walked the 142 steps from her home to the South End library to talk about her previous work (The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50), she mentioned her next book coming out later that year, titled, Exits: The Endings That Set us Free. She described it as an exploration of the premise that our society is pre-occupied with beginnings. "We ignore the departures," she said. Looking at many kinds of exits, from the voluntary to the forced, she found that endings can be a process that unlock regenerative powers "that set us free." On Tuesday, March 3, Lawrence-Lightfoot who won a MacArthur Prize for her work in 1984, will read from Exits. The title of her new book, due out in the fall, is called Growing Each Other Up: When Our Children Become Our Teachers. You can ask her about that, too.
Lawrence-Lightfoot is the Emily Hargroves Fisher professor of Education at Harvard University, and a fellow at the Bunting Institute and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. The renowned sociologist' books include, among others, Beyond Bias: Perspectives on Classrooms (1979) (with Jean Carew); The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture (1983), which received the 1984 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association; Balm In Gilead: Journey of A Healer (1988), which won the 1988 Christopher Award, for literary merit and humanitarian achievement; I’ve Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation (1994); and The Third Chapter: Risk, Passion, and Adventure in the Twenty-Five Years After 50 (2009). Upon her retirement from Harvard University, the endowed chair currently held by Lawrence-Lightfoot will officially become the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Endowed Chair, making her the first African-American woman in Harvard’s history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor.
The South End Library is fully handicapped accessible. Seating is limited. The event is free. We offer refreshments. Books will be available for sale, signing, and borrowing from the library.
Boston Globe Spotlight Reporter Steve Kurkjian Wants to Know "How We Can Get Boston to Feel the Loss" and "Rally the Troops" to Recover the Art Stolen From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990
"Can we get Marty Walsh in front of it? Or Cardinal O'Malley?" a frustrated Boston Globe Spotlight reporter Stephen Kurkjian asked the overflow audience that had come to listen to him talk about his almost two-decades' long investigation into the unsolved theft of 13 priceless works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In describing his disappointment over the lack of resolution after a 26-year hunt for the art, Kurkjian wanted ideas on how to re-ignite the public's interest. He recalled a French detective who told him that when nine priceless Impressionists paintings, including a masterpiece by Monet, were stolen in 1985 from the Marmottan Museum in Paris, it was felt as a loss for every Parisian. "We got tip after tip after tip," the detective had said. "For you," he added, referring to the Gardner's art heist, "it's a cold case." Five years after the Paris theft, the French art was recovered, in Corsica. Twenty-six years after the Isabella Stewart Gardner plunder, the question in Boston still is "where is the art work?" "We don't feel this," lamented Kurkjian. "How can we get Boston to feel it?"
Rembrandt's only known seascape, stolen from the Garner Museum
For Kurkjian, whose deeply reported Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the Greatest Art Heist in the World, came out last year, the loss of this art is personal. His father, an artist, was inspired by the Old Masters of the Gardner Museum. Two cousins, classical pianists, regularly performed at the Gardner's popular Sunday concert series. Kurkjian himself attended Boston Latin, across the street from the museum, and revered the extraordinary collection that resulted from the grand vision of its 19th-century founder, Isabella Stewart Gardner. "She put those pieces on the walls for us, " he said. "She filled up her houses on Beacon Street with European art, but didn't stop there. She understood civilizations survive because of their artistic achievement. She wanted to give the United States a tradition it didn't have yet. When the museum opened in 1903, it was free. She wanted to inspire America into the arts."
Former Boston Globe reporter M. E. Malone introducing the author
Kurkjian was introduced by former Boston Globe reporter M.E. Malone, who was hired by him "fresh out of college." Even as she described him as a Founding Father of the Spotlight Team, a Pulitzer-prize winner who knows Boston and what closets which skeletons are in, she assured the audience Kurkjian also applied his investigative skills to less glamorous subjects, such as when in 1982 the Registry of Motor Vehicles decided to replace free driver's license manuals with ones that cost $1. "Steve thought that was outrageous," she told the laughing audience. Kurkjian quickly discovered there were still 505,470 free manuals in the DMV's warehouse, as well as piles of them under the counters and in closets of some DMV offices. Within a short time during which DMV personnel could not find a logical explanation for the charge, the Boston Globe reported that the DMV had made free driver's license manuals available again.
Of all the accolades bestowed on Kurkjian, his father, the artist, told him that solving "Boston's last best secret" would be the crowning achievement of his career. "I thought the 25th anniversary would be the year," Kurkjian said. "There was a lot of publicity. My book came out. Ann Hawley, the Gardner museum director who labored with this loss, retired," and there was now a $5 million reward for the recovery. In addition, a new Boston FBI prosecutor reviewed videotapes of the night before the theft, and discovered that a stranger was let into the museum 24 hours earlier, against the rules. "We hoped for an essential tip," Kurkjian said after reporting it. But none has led to the discovery of the art, yet. "These artworks were for the haves and the have-nots," Kurkjian stressed. "Our kids haven't seen them. We have to rally the troops. How do you motivate them?"
Stephen Kurkjian discussing his book, Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the Greatest Art heist in the World.
Virginia Pye, Reading from Her Second Novel, "Dreams of the Red Phoenix," Says the Archives of Her Grandparents, Missionaries in North China, Are the Inspiration for Her Literary Work
When Virginia Pye came to the South End library last month to talk about her second novel, Dreams of the Red Phoenix, she brought along a slide show of compelling photographs of North China she had found in her grandparents' home. They date from the first decades of the 20th century, during the rise of Communism, when the Pyes were Congregational missionaries in Shanxi Province. In one of them, a tall man stands with his wife behind a small child. He happens to be Pye's grandfather, Orson. He was among the first Westerners who returned after the Boxer Rebellion, when the Chinese had tried to rid their country of Western influence. He met his wife there, Gertrude, who had come to China on her own at age 25, from Ohio, where she had studied early childhood education at Oberlin College.
Virginia Pye's grandparents as missionaries, and father, age 4, in North China in the 1920s. Courtesy Virginia Pye.
The little boy is the author's father, Lucian Pye, who later became a famous China scholar, and taught at MIT for decades. "When I wrote the novels, I kept those pictures by my side because they inspired the stories I wrote," Pye told the audience. Growing up in Belmont, MA, in the 1960s, Pye disavowed her family's missionary background, repelled by US imperialism, and opposed to the Vietnam War, which her father supported. She wrote other novels, but eventually found herself going through her grandfather's papers and discovered a more complex story than she had initially assumed. This archive became the inspiration for Pye's first novel, the highly praised River of Dust, which was chosen as an Indie Next Pick and was a finalist in the 2014 Virginia Literary Awards.
Author Virginia Pye signing her book for admirers who came to hear her talk.
He was a "beautiful writer," she said, "an erudite man who wove Shakespeare and Dickens into his reports home about his mission, as he envisioned it." Her grandfather raised funds in America to have a road built so the Red Cross could deliver food to a population starving from years of drought, Pye learned. Their young daughter died of dysentary at age six, when her father, the little boy in the picture, was four. Orson Pye himself died of tuberculosis not long after, in 1926. "Through fiction, I dealt with how my grandparents weathered one disaster after another, and had to re-examine their faith," said Pye.
Her second China novel, Dreams of the Red Phoenix --named Best Book of 2015 by the Richmond Dispatch-- was inspired by a family story: After Japan invaded China, her grandmother had fearlessly chased Japanese soldiers off her front porch in the Chinese mission compound with a broom. Widowed, Gertrude eventually returned to the United States with her teenage son in 1942, after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Unlike her husband, Gertrude did not leave a written record. But Pye was able to imagine details of those days when she came across journals by the pro-Communist US journalist Agnes Smedley, who had followed the Red Army and reported about it for English-language newspapers.
Pye, who returned with her family to the Boston area from Richmond, VA, when her husband was named executive director of the Di Cordova Museum, is currently working on the third and final novel in the China series, a personal odyssey of sorts, called Sleepwalking to China. While River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix played out against events experienced by her grandparents in North China before and after the First World War, respectively, Sleepwalking takes place during the anti-Vietnam era and the fall of Saigon, which she lived through herself. "Then I may be done with my China novels," Pye commented.
The desert-like landscape of North China in the 1920s. Courtesy Virginia Pye.
FOSEL's Annual Meeting Will Present a New Slate of Board Candidates for You --Yes You-- to Elect on Tuesday, February 2 at 6:30 PM: Meet Your Library's Advocates and Enjoy the Refreshments
Poster design by Mary Owens
On February, 9, at 6:30 PM, the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) will hold its Annual Meeting and present the audience with an excellent slate of candidates for its voting board. In addition, there is a separate slate of library aficionados who have agreed to be board advisors and use their skills and interests to enhance the library's role in the community. The terms are for one year, but can be renewed. The audience elects the board, and that means you, so please come and participate. The seven candidates for the voting board each have specific expertise and abilities in the three areas that FOSEL wants to focus on for the next two years, namely library/building maintenance and renovation; library park maintenance and renovation; and programming.The board candidates, alphabetically listed, are:
Marilyn Davillier (programming), a licensed, clinical social worker who wants to start a South End Parenting Forum at the library, with her husband, Ed Tronick, a noted researcher in child development and parenting
Ed Hostetter (building/park), actively involved in the South End as a Garden Steward for Southwest Corridor Park and a GED math tutor at USES. His background includes teaching, building and psychiatric nursing. Ed looks forward to becoming involved in the library at the nearby corner on his street – with a curiosity about what meaningful contributions/services a library might deliver to our complex diverse neighborhood in these changing & challenging times
Jeanne Pelletier (building), an attorney and longtime neighborhood activist for the Hurley School, Hayes Park, the South End Historic Society, and the South End library who is currently overseeing the restoration of the historic Ayer Mansion, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany
Michelle Laboy (park/building), an architect, planner and urban engineer who created the LightWells in Library Park; she teaches at Northeastern
Marleen Nienhuis (everything), founder of FOSEL, who has recently rejoined the board as clerk/secretary and writes the library updates for the FOSEL web site
Mari Passananti (programming), author of The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken and The K Street Affair. She recruits authors for The South End Writes, and writes the introductions for the speakers who come to talk at the library
Barbara Sommerfeld (everything) has been the outstanding treasurer of FOSEL and has graciously agreed to do more of the same. She has an MBA from Northeastern, worked for non-profits, and currently tutors at St. Stephens. She has lived in the South End for 45 years.
The advisory-board members, alphabetically listed, are:
Adam Castiglioni (programming), who was the clerk/secretary for six years, during which time he recruited several speakers and used social media to publicize FOSEL events
Kim Clark (everything), an avid library user whose specialty is marketing and promotion for business and non-profits
Susanna Coit (programming) is in her final semester of the archives program at Simmons' School of Library and Information Science. She studied Afro-American Studies and Special Education at Smith College. She wants to encourage the relationship between the South End Library and the community through social media and events/programming. As a frequent user of library resources, Susanna is looking forward to supporting the South End Library's role and efforts in the neighborhood, where she has lived since 2008.
Marian Ellwood (programming/building), a scientist specializing in regulatory affairs, who loves the library
Stephen Fox (building/park), the chair of the South End Forum who has been a longtime advocate for the South End library and its park
Jacqueline McRath (programming), who has written about the arts for the Bay State Banner. She is an advocate for African-American artists and poets, chairs the Teresa India-Young Scholarship Committee for fiber arts, and organizes fiber-arts exhibits at USES, like the current one, on exhibit till the end of February.
Mary Owens (programming), the graphic designer who has created all the beautiful posters for the South End Writes author series at the library, as well as the designs for the FOSEL tote bags, and the library signage on Tremont Street
Curtis Seborowski (building), who has been president of FOSEL since October 2014, and spearheaded the project for new library signage
Lois Russell (programming), a former journalist, is a fiber artist and basket maker whose sculptural work appears in national exhibitions and publications. The former president of the National Basketry Organization, she currently serves on the boards of the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston and Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Simmons College and Stanford University. Lois is interested in developing arts and public-health programming for the library, in collaboration with other board members.
Licia Sky (programming), a singer-songwriter who professionally runs experiential-movement workshops and would like to start poetry open-mic readings at the library
Anne Smart has worked for the BPL for 25 years and has been the head librarian at the South End branch for 20 years. She holds a Masters of Library Science from the University of North Texas, and grew up on the South Shore.
Karen Watson (building) is currently working on a project to develop exciting window installations at the library that tap into the South End library's creative community with library-themed displays.
Happy New Year: If You Missed the Annual Holiday Jazz Concert Between-the-Stacks This Year, Here's the Reason Not to Do That Next Time
Every year, the South End Library's Holiday Party and Jazz Concert features terrific music by Pat Loomis and his Friends, a home-cooked dinner prepared by chef John Hampton, and desserts brought by volunteers who love to bake. The audience sits at long tables between the stacks listening and eating, while regular library users who just happened to come in to pick up or drop off books are drawn in and stand around, tapping their feet, arms filled with books.
This year's line-up of musicians was as good as ever: Pat Loomis on the alto-sax; Antonio Shiell Loomis on guitar; Amy Bellamy, piano; Christoff Glaude on bass; Dave Fox, drums; and special guest, Tia Fuller, on alto-sax.
Fuller is is Mack Avenue Records recording artist. She is a Down Beat poll winner, who played with Beyonce and Esperalda Spalding.
At the South End Library Next Friday, December 20, from 10 AM till Noon: How to Enroll for Health Insurance Under the Affordable Care Act
The wonderful staff from the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) will come to the South End Library next Friday, December 20, to answer any questions you might have about the Affordable Care Act as it will apply in Massachusetts. Not only that, the multilingual staff will help you enroll. For free, if necessary, or at a low cost, if you qualify. The public forum is free to all. For additional information, call the BPHC at 617 534-5050.
A Reminder to Donate a Little or a Lot to the Best Institution in Your Neighborhood: the South End Branch of the Boston Public Library
Fosel appeal 2
A few weeks ago, the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) sent out a mailing to local residents asking for financial support. Your response has been heart-warming and is much appreciated. Just in case you were not on the current list, and feel rejected or left behind, here is a copy of the appeal letter for you to ponder and respond to. The funds we collect from you will help FOSEL to pay for its programs as well as physical improvements in the library itself. These range far and wide, from the flowering perennial gardens around the trees on Tremont Street facing the library to the reupholstery and refurbishing of the branch's seating area and library counter. The programs include our authors' series, soon entering its fourth year, The South End Writes, which brings South End and not-so-South End luminaries to your library. Last summer, we drew on South End's local jazz-and-blues heritage to bring fabulous bands to Library Park; this will continue next summer. Thanks to FOSEL, the library is now fully handicapped accessible.
New improvement projects and programs are in the planning stage, awaiting additional funds to make them come true. This is where we turn to you. Please send your donation to the address listed on the letter to the left. Or use our PayPal account. All contributions are fully tax-deductible in the year they are made. All the money will come back to you in programs, events, and a refurbished and welcoming library and park. Every donation of $50 or more will entitle you to one of FOSEL's beautiful book bags. You can pick up the red or the green one with a receipt for your contribution at the branch. FOSEL thanks you for your continued generosity.
New York Times Bestselling Novelist, J. Courtney Sullivan, Will Read from Her Latest Book, "The Engagements," at the South End Library, Tuesday, December 3, at 6:30 PM
J Courtney Fitzg
Right after the Thanksgiving holiday, on Tuesday, December 3, TheSouth End Writes will host the last author of the year 2013, J. Courtney Sullivan. The bestselling novelist's previous novel, Maine (2011), was named the Time Magazine Best Book of the Year as well as a Washington Post Notable Book. The writer's 2009 novel, Commencements, about four Smith College dorm mates together at a wedding for the first time four years after graduation, was described by the New York Times as that year's most inviting summer novel.
Sullivan will read from her new work of fiction, The Engagements, at the South End Library. Spanning almost a hundred years, the novel describes four marriages, each one vastly different from the other, but likely engagingly recognizable to most observers of, or participants in, the marital dance. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune,New York Magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Men’s Vogue, and the New York Observer, among others. She is a contributor to the essay anthology The Secret Currency of Love and co-editor of Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. The author will be introduced by novelist and South End resident Sue Miller, who invited Sullivan to speak at The South End Writes.
The event is sponsored by FOSEL and, thanks to your contributions, free. We offer refreshments. The author’s books will be available for purchase and borrowing. The library is fully handicapped accessible thanks to FOSEL’s fundraising. The library is located on Tremont Street between West Newton Street and Rutland Square. Seating is limited so come early.
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Distinguished Biographer Megan Marshall Shines a Light on Margaret Fuller's 19th-century Struggle for Professional Success but Sara DiVello's Career Memoir Presents a 21st-Century Twist on it
The inclusive embrace of public libraries as a venue for all voices was on full display this month when, in less than a week's time, two authors who could not have been more different talked about the working lives of women, albeit two centuries apart. On November 13, acclaimed biographer Megan Marshall, (her 2005 biography of the Peabody Sisters was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) read from her most recent work, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. It describes the epic struggle the brilliant 19th-century author and women's rights advocate waged to find her place among professional equals who, in those days, were mostly men.
The despairing question Fuller asked of herself in the 1830s, how to ply her talents despite the severe restrictions her gender imposed, was answered by biographer Marshall's cheerful recounting of what the highly educated Fuller accomplished before her untimely death at forty in 1850: supporting herself and her family financially after her father's death by teaching and writing; editing the prestigious Transcendentalist magazine The Dial; organizing subscription-based consciousness-raising workshops for women called 'Conversations'; publishing the influential book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and being the first female correspondent for The New York Tribune. The paper's editor sent Fuller to Italy where she covered the Italian revolution and the 1849 siege of Rome. After having found the institution of marriage lacking, moreover, Fuller married for love rather than financial security: to an impoverished Italian count, years younger than she, with whom she had a child out of wedlock. Marshall, who in the 1980s used to live around the corner from the South End branch at Rutland Square, while doing research at the Massachusetts Historical Society, called Fuller's life 'cinematic.'
Back to the 21st century where writer and yoga teacher Sara DiVello, who presented for South End Writes a week later, did not have to face the despair Fuller did about where or whether she could find work. Home schooled, from a family without means, DiVello put herself through college by working five days a week. She did well the thirteen years she spent in the male-dominated corporate world, she told a packed library audience, except for one thing: her female bosses. One of them, 'Vomiting Vicky' was eventually replaced by an even worse supervisor, at which point DiVello quit to become a yoga teacher. But the author of the career memoir, Where in the Om Am I?, found that, in the yoga world, bullying, cliques and mean-spirited tactics by her female colleagues thrived, just as they did in the financial services industry she had left behind. In a lament that echoes a March 2013 Wall Street Journal article about 'queen bee bosses,' DeVello told her listeners she believed that "one of the reasons women make 70 cents for each dollar men earn is because women don't support one another," The Worcester Street resident clarified in a subsequent conversation that other factors matter, too, for example, that women don't ask for the same dollar as men, as well as their child-bearing and child-rearing dilemmas.
"Among girls and women there's a sense of false scarcity," DiVello elaborated. They are programmed to want to have the prettiest face, the best boyfriend --preferably the one and only captain of the football team-- and hang on to the few high-powered jobs occupied by women, she added. The evening ended with DiVello demonstrating simple yoga exercises for the audience, many of whom munched on her delicious cookies. "I am Italian," the yoga teacher said, "which means I'm compelled to feed you."
Doug Bauer Draws an Appreciative Audience When Reading about "Matters of Life and Death" from His Essay Collection, "What Happens Next?"
When Doug Bauer read the essay, Tenacity, from his new collection What Happens Next: Matters of Life and Death earlier this month, you could hear a pin drop in the upstairs room at the South End library. No surprise, really, as the author's observations of tenacity illuminated and brought home forcefully the physical expression of it in this finely woven tale: the tenacity of his widowed mother living alone, who fell, and took 12 hours to crawl the 15 steps to the phone to dial for help; the tenacity of the homeless men at the Pine Street Inn he used to volunteer at who, years later, still are alive on his street corner despite the 'dog years' of abuse from alcohol, weather and drugs; and the tenacity of his own aging body shown from the inside on the doctor's office's video monitors, revealing the miraculous sloshing of his heart's rhythmic pumpings "working away on my behalf, without notice or complaint."
All of it was suffused with Bauer's delicious details of place: Iowa, where in his family's cemetery gravestones rise up "like a bumper winter crop;" the South End, with its collection of artists-occupied warehouses right next to the scattering of homeless shelters; the doctor's office, where the "oddly intimate and deeply alien sensation" of the technician navigating a jelly-slathered device over his chest seems "like impossibly cautious sci-fi foreplay."
Doug Bauer speaking with one of his admirers
Bauer told his audience he doesn't keep journals, for the most part, but trusts his memory for the details which may not be "exactly true," he said. Writing from memory, he had a couple of hundred pages of materials for the essays, using every scrap to make them fit cohesively into the narrative's 'collage.' Audience questions ranged from literary technique to specific health-related questions to advice on future ventures. "Any suggestions for our mothers?" an audience member wondered after reflecting on the details of Bauer's mother's fall and subsequent death. "It's an inspiring book on the subject of women's health," said another. "You have such a soothing reading voice: have you ever done books on tape?" a third one wanted to know.
The author is currently working on a novel, his fourth.
Local Realty Group Organizes Public-School Assignment Forum, Tuesday, November 12, with Proceeds to Benefit the South End Library
Do Your School Assignment Homework Forum, November 12
Raising funds for our local library branch is usually accomplished by an annual mail solicitation put together by the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL), or by FOSEL making a special request from a generous donor here or there who loves libraries. As an unexpected and happy addition to this admittedly ho-hum fundraising arsenal, a local realty firm, the Steve Cohen Team of Keller Williams Realty, has now organized a community event in which panelists hope to explain a complicated new assignment system to public-school parents for a $10 admission ticket, the proceeds of which will benefit the South End branch library. In an informative article on school assignment in the Boston Globe this week, an education advocate was quoted as saying that it’s "not the easiest system to understand."
The November 12 event intends to help elementary-school parents wade through the new process that began this month for the coming school year of 2014. Topics are new tools being made available for school-choice research and what is being done to improve the quality of public-school education. Panelists include local education and government representatives like Mark Kenen, Executive Director of the MA Charter Public Schools Association; Bill Linehan, Boston City Councilor, Distirct 2; Lee McGuire, Chief Communications Officer, Boston Public Schools; Mary Tamer, Member, School Choice Advisory Committee; Ann Walsh, Chief of Staff for John Connolly; and Josh Weis, Hurley School & Boston Latin Parent, an expert on New Choice & Assignment Policy.
South End culinary lights, Myers & Chang, will provide refreshments. It starts at 5:30 PM at the South End's Ben Franklin Institute of Technology located 41 Berkeley Street. For further info and registration, click here.
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Tortuous Road to a Better East Boston Library Leads to Sparkling New Facility that Offers Fewer Books (from 66,000 to 18,000) and Leaves Its WPA Murals of Sailing Ships Awaiting Restoration
BPL Trustee Paul LaCamera
It's probably safe to say that, if not for BPL Trustee Paul LaCamera, the beautiful new East Boston branch library opening November 2 on Bremen Street would never have been built. Just like a previous plan for a new East Boston library, completed at considerable expense in 2008 and aging quickly on a dusty library shelf, was not going to be built.
LaCamera, formerly the General Manager for WBUR, who grew up in East Boston, took a stand at a BPL trustee meeting in 2010 when he refused to agree to shutter one of the two East Boston branches before a new facility would replace it. In a last-ditch effort to get LaCamera's consent to close a total of four libraries --and a unanimous vote-- before an enraged audience watching the proceedings in Copley Library, Mayor Menino, in a phone call to BPL president Amy Ryan, promised he would include funds for a new East Boston Library in his next capital budget. But LaCamera still abstained. Immediately after the other BPL trustees agreed 5 to 1 to close the four branches, including East Boston's Orient Heights. However, they passed an additional amendment that the next new library would be built in East Boston. And...here it is.
The new East Boston Library, by Rawn Architects
The graceful $17.25 million new East Boston library was designed by the same firm, Rawn Architects, now working on the renovation of the Copley Library's Johnson building. The firm was the architect as well for libraries in Mattapan and downtown Cambridge, among other places. The East Boston branch has more than twice the space of the two libraries it replaces, Orient Heights and Meridian Street, but far fewer books, about 18,000 instead of 66,000, a bone of contention for neighborhood groups who assert that, in East Boston, expensive electronic devices are not likely to replace books for a largely poor community.
Ships Through the Ages East Boston Library Murals by Edward King
Another bone of contention are some 15 Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals of 19th-Century whalers and clippers, painted by Rockport artist Frederick Leonard King in the 1930s. They all used to hang in the now-closed Meridian branch but only four will be on display in the new library. The Ships Through the Ages Series requires major restoration to the estimated tune of $150,000, an amount the Friends of the East Boston Library hopes to raise, according to an excellent report on the subject earlier this fall on WBUR, linked here. Their goal is to hang all the paintings, restored, in the new branch one day, so the series will evoke the nautical past of the East Boston neighborhood, where once these very ships were built.
BPL Executives and Community Advisors Express Excitement about Johnson Building's Proposed New Design but Face Uncertainty over Incoming Mayor's Commitment to the Renovation Project
Mock-up of Johnson building's Boylston St redesigned entrance
The long-overdue Johnson building renovation effort seemed on a roll: Mayor Thomas Menino allocated more than $14 million in what turned out to be his final capital budget for a much-anticipated facelift to the Copley Library's cavernous Johnson building on Boylston Street. Real estate interests were salivating at the prospect of some of the library's street-level acreage being turned into retail space --as yet undetermined in focus but pledged to be 'compatible' with the library's mission. A prominent architectural firm, William Rawn Associates, was hired for the construction of Phase 2, to start in December. An engaged and lively group of local citizens, the Community Advisory Committee, met numerous times to come up with the best possible redesign to revive the moribund city block on Boylston Street where the library is located. This summer, the BPL and its trustees made a strong presentation before the Boston Landmarks Commission for permission to remove the granite chastity belt of plinths that now encircles the building on three sides, condemning the entire block and the library to a state of perpetual chill. All good and well. The question is, with Mayor Menino leaving office in a few months, what will the new mayor, John Connolly or Marty Walsh, think of it all?
Second Floor Johnson Building facing Boylston St, Children's Room on left; Teen Space on right
The governance structure of the BPL makes the mayor of Boston The Big Decider in the library universe. One of the side effects of this autocratic set-up is that the trustees do not have their own political or financial power base from which to defend the interests of the BPL as they diverge from the mayor's. He appoints the nine trustees, who serve at his pleasure; they are not vetted or approved by either the city council or another public entity. The trustees hire the BPL president, keeping a close eye on the mayor's wishes; five years into the job, the current president, Amy Ryan, is likely to face contract renewal. Finally, whatever residual financial autonomy the BPL once had was wiped out in 2008 when the roughly 200 library trust funds, totaling close to $60 million, were moved from the BPL president's control to the mayor's budget office, despite vehement protestations by then-BPL president Bernard Margolis. Therefore, in theory, the Johnson building project could grind to a halt for lack of support by the new mayor, or even his mere desire to want to review the entire project and its premise before moving forward or sideways.
Proposed Fiction Section, alongside Exeter St, with stairs leading to Mezzanine
That would be too bad, as became evident at the Community Advisory Committee's meeting on October 18, when Rawn Associates presented a mock-up proposal of a vibrant new Johnson building artfully connected to the McKim building with initial designs to become visually integrated with the street scape on Boylston Street. The nine quadrants that form the basic design of the Johnson building are opened up to light flowing in from the enormous windows on the first and second floors, with easily navigated and color-guided pathways to browsing areas, circulation, fiction sections and Bostonia collections, as well as 21st-century spaces for teenagers, children and tots on floor two. Sets of bathrooms on the second floor alone make the entire renovation worthwhile: no bathrooms exist there now. Many details remain to be worked out, among them what art work or fountain or installation to place in the center of Deferrari Hall, the enormous lobby behind the current Soviet-style lobby on Boylston Street that dwarfs the information desk in the center of it, where a forelorn staffer or two bravely dispense directions to bathroom and book.
The integrated street scape/library entrance on Boylston Street is still mostly a concept to be fully developed and finalized in subsequent phases of the renovation project. An immediate complication is the unfortunate location of the portable public restroom in front of the BPL, part of a large city contract that is said to bring revenue into city coffers as it injects tackiness into the library site. City representatives at the Friday meeting said it was the most popular street bathroom in Boston, exceeded in usage only by the one located in City Hall Plaza. "In that case, perhaps City Hall Plaza could use a second one next to it," was the tart response from Community Advisory Board member Meg Mainzer-Cohen, also the executive director of the Back Bay Neighborhood Association.
The next Community Advisory Committee meeting, open to the public, will be held January 15, at 9 AM, in the Commonwealth Salon of the BPL. This meeting will focus on the exterior, landscaping and partnership spaces. For more information on the Johnson building project, click here.
Comedic Legal Wagwit Jay Wexler Takes Ed Tuttle, Associate Justice, on a Quest to Do the "Crazy Things" Job Security Should Encourage
Ed Tuttle’s mid-life crisis takes place when he’s been an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. He’s no longer at ease with his life, questioning even the meaning of language. He recognizes this is a problematic development in general but particularly in the wordy field of law. But his wife is dead; his daughter, the famous chef, occupied with her culinary challenges, so at the end of the Court’s term, when his colleagues depart on their routine law junkets in Venice and Paris, Tuttle decides to go to Jackson Hole, where fly-fishing is the unknown attraction. He discovers that, while famous in name, his life lived outside of the judicial robe requires constant explanation of what it is, exactly, that he does inside the Court to the befuddled characters he encounters on the Snake River. Or the importance of it, something Tuttle had begun to wonder about himself. Take Jackie, with whom he has pretty good sex in the motel after a day spent mostly untangling fish wire: “I can’t believe,” Jackie whispers, “that I ate an elk steak and did it with a Supreme Court Justice on the same night.”
Author and BU Law Professor Jay Wexler speaking at the South End library
No surprise to hear Jay Wexler, the author of The Adventures of Ed Tuttle, Associate Justice, once had a dream to be a sit-com writer. He may yet get there, since his sharply pitched sense of comedic timing and gesture created laughter and chuckles throughout his performance on October 1, when he read from recent work at the South End Library. Wexler's work ponders the subject of people like him, a tenured professor of law at BU or, for that matter, Supreme Court Justices who have the job security to stretch themselves beyond normally acceptable boundaries but continue to live traditional lives as if nothing changed. “They could do crazy things,” Wexler commented with apparent regret, “but associate justices don’t. And I am interested in how that plays.”
Apart from his solid –“but boring” according to Wexler himself—academic writings, Wexler’s previous work includes Holy Hullabaloos, a trip to the battlegrounds of church/state wars, and The Odd Clauses, a look at, yes, the odd clauses in the US Constitution.
South End Library Has Scheduled Special Programming With Puppeteer Nicola McEldowney, Storyteller Mark Binder And Jazz Musician Pat Loomis
The South End branch has scheduled several special programs for children, aged pre-school through teen. And for the rest
of us we can look forward to the Annual Holiday Jazz Concert and Potluck with Pat Loomis and Friends. Also listed are regularly scheduled programs. For more info, check the South End branch's web site, or click here....Here are the special-event dates:
PRESCHOOL:
Wednesday, October 30, a Halloween Puppet Show, with the fabulous puppeteer Nicola McEldowney; 10;30 AM
Wednesday, November 13, Stories of Giving and Thanks, with the excellent storyteller Mark Binder, author of Cinderella Spinderella, 10:30 AM
TEENS:
Tuesday, October 15, Clay and Collage Artist Sabrina! Create mixed-media keepsake treasures with sculpey clay, odds and ends from the library's GREAT STASH of decorative items and any small treasures you can bring. We supply the old cigar boxes... 6:30 PM;
THE REST OF US:
Tuesday, December 17,The Annual South End Library Holiday Jazz Concert Pot Luck with the fabulous Pat Loomis and Friends. 6:30 PM.
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WEEKLY PROGRAMS:
Fridays in November at 10:30: Preschool Films
All Mondays at 10:30: Toddler Story Time, nursery rhymes, song & movement, story, & simple craft.
All Wednesdays at 10:30: Preschool Story Time that will focus on: new beginnings, fall & animals (September & October); tales of giving thanks & appreciation (November); and tales and crafts for holiday (December)
Mayoral Candidates Connolly and Walsh Both Support New Downtown/Chinatown Branch, High Standards for BPL Trustees, Expanded Hours and Stabilizing BPL Funding
Rep. Marty Walsh
Both mayoral candidates, Rep. Marty Walsh and At-large City Councillor John Connolly, have re-affirmed their commitment to a vibrant Boston Public Library system which they most recently displayed in the 2010 fight to keep Mayor Menino from closing up to ten branches. While each differs from the other in approach and expansiveness on the questions raised, Connolly and Walsh equally support re-building a new downtown library to replace the Chinatown library closed more than five decades ago; setting standards of library expertise and relevant experience for the BPL trustees who govern the public library; expanding branch library hours; and finding ways to stabilize funding for the BPL. Below are the questions posed by FOSEL and the answers of each John Connolly and Marty Walsh underneath, in bold italics.
LIBRARY HOURS: the 25 branch libraries, which service the vast majority of 625,00 Bostonians, are closed most evenings, evenings, Sundays and, in summer, Saturdays as well. The Copley Library, however, within walking distance of the 20,000 residents of the Back Bay, is open four nights a week, Saturdays and, except in the summer, Sundays. In other words, most of Boston’s residents and their families whose taxes pay for the BPL, can’t use their local library when they are off work. As mayor, will you make sure all libraries in the system are open nights and weekends to reflect the specific need for local access?
At-large City Councillor John Connolly
WALSH: The Boston Public Library is a cornerstone of my vision for the future of Boston, in the sense that it represents access, information, and the potential for lifelong learning and community building. The library represents the best of Boston’s history and its recognition of the value of education at all levels. I would support expanded hours to ensure that more people can use the library at their convenience. I also believe that this will allow the library to consider flex-time for its staff, which I believe will support a workforce that needs flexibility for child care and other needs. I would take into account public surveys and the library’s own statistics about use to ensure that staff and other resources are allocated to best use.
CONNOLLY: While I recognize that we have to manage our resources carefully, I would love to see libraries open seven days a week. I think the key is for libraries to be centers of learning and community that are well connected to other institutions so that we can ensure their vitality for generations to come. Today, when a smartphone can put a world of information at our fingertips in a way that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago, it's vital that we re-imagine the role of our libraries. With all of that readily available information comes a powerful opportunity for libraries to help people make sense of it. Libraries can be places where people not only consume content, but create it; where people not only gain knowledge, but apply it. I see libraries as community institutions of the utmost importance. I want to have a community learning model in every neighborhood, where we're connecting our libraries with our schools and community centers. I know that one of the principles outlined in Compass, the BPL’s 2012 strategic plan, calls for libraries to be centers of knowledge through enhanced collaboration with schools, institutions, and the private sector, and I think that’s how we need to think about the future of libraries. My vision is that libraries thrive through connections to other institutions.
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LIBRARY GOVERNANCE: there are no required standards of professional library expertise or library advocacy to be appointed to the nine-member BPL board of trustees. There are no term limits. There is no requirement to show up at public meetings (and some trustees seldom do). There is no public vetting process for library trustees, nor a public confirmation process to make sure the public gets the best library advocates possible to meet the library’s needs. Board seats do not reflect specific library interests, either, as is the case elsewhere: for example, the interests of branch libraries differ from those of the Copley Library; young adults have different needs than seniors; book acquisition specialists have different concerns than book or art conservators. As mayor, would you set standards for library trustees and their performance, and consider appointing those who would be qualified advocates for specific library and neighborhood concerns?
WALSH: I would strongly support a revision of standards for the BPL Board of Trustees. Accountability and transparency are key in all areas of policy for my administration. Just as I intend to seek the most highly qualified Superintendent of Schools and Chief of Police, I feel that every city department should be guided and led by people who have experience in the field, are aware of best practices, and have a vision of how to improve and support the departments they are in charge of.
CONNOLLY: I want diverse trustees who represent the whole city, who believe passionately in the future of the BPL, and who are committed to fulfilling their trustee role to the best of their ability. I will work with you to make sure we have a process for identifying and selecting the best candidates we can find.
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LIBRARY CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS: Which local libraries get renovated, or where new ones are built, is governed by mysterious forces. There is no transparent long-term capital plan, nor is a specific public process in place, by which libraries are upgraded equitably, or new ones built where needed, or handicapped-accessibility ensured. As mayor, will you institute a transparent and fair capital plan to upgrade all BPL libraries equitably where needed, or build new ones, as part of a public process?
WALSH: The foundation of a Walsh Administration will be ethics and transparency, including financial disclosure. Just as many schools are in need of capital improvement, the library branches in our neighborhoods, which support after-school learning and programming, need to be maintained at the highest standards with access to up-to-date technology, and safe and healthy buildings. Long-term capital improvements in both areas are critical needs, and ones that we would address as part of a comprehensive review of city property.
CONNOLLY: A capital plan for the libraries, developed with community engagement, would help us to prioritize the most critical projects and ensure that all neighborhoods have access to high quality facilities. In general, careful community planning should play a greater role in the future of our city. For example, I have long advocated for a comprehensive facilities plan for the Boston Public Schools.
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BUILDING NEW LIBRARIES: Downtown Crossing is increasing its residential footprint. It is also a transportation hub where many young adults from all over the city hang out with little to do. As such, they can become easy targets for unfair and unnecessary criminalization by law enforcement. Nearby Chinatown, moreover, lost its library decades ago. As mayor, would you consider building an architecturally exciting downtown library with an outstanding young-adult department and a strong Asian profile that also replaces the long-lost Chinatown branch?
WALSH: Yes. A revitalized downtown area is where we see the most potential for growth as people return to living in the city in the next decades. Providing the kinds of resources which support families and empty-nesters who live here would definitely include library services. In addition, Marty feels that each library branch has the possibility of reflecting the richness of its neighborhood and its cultural diversity. The Walsh Administration will support and support all Bostonians.
CONNOLLY: I have long supported a new library for Chinatown, and as mayor I will work to get one built. In the meantime, however, we need a solution that helps meet the community’s immediate needs. I support funding a fulltime librarian to keep a reading room open in Chinatown until a permanent downtown library can be opened.
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THE BPL FOUNDATION: the BPL fundraising arm was created to repair the McKim building almost two decades ago, and will target its future campaign on the long-overdue Johnson Building renovation. It does not focus on branch libraries, however, or their local Friends groups’ capital-improvement issues. But branches could use the Foundation’s help. The East Boston library, for example, has14 iconic WPA paintings that will cost $150,000 to restore before they can be installed in the new East Boston library. Their tiny Friends group is left on its own to raise the funds for it.As mayor, would you direct the BPL Foundation to expand its mission and assist local Friends groups who want to preserve cultural and historic landmarks of importance to their neighborhood libraries?
WALSH: Yes. The Boston Public Library is comprised of many parts, and its neighborhood branches are a key component of library services. Just as I intend to bring municipal services to “little city halls” throughout Boston’s neighborhoods, library services are not confined to the main branch at Copley. The Library and the City should be proud that the first branch library in the country was opened in East Boston in 1870, and we are about to open a new branch in that neighborhood. Many of the branch buildings have architectural or historical significance, and should be restored. Others are in need of considerable repair and should be upgraded or replaced. The BPL Foundation should leverage support for the library to be part of this vision of the Library’s future, and I would direct them to do so.
CONNOLLY: It is critically important to support our neighborhood libraries, so this proposal make sense to me. But in order not to turn this into a zerosum game, as mayor I will reach out to private and philanthropic partners to ask for their support in expanding the resources available to the Foundation.
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LIBRARY TRUST FUNDS: these are meant to enrich the public library beyond capital and operational allocations from the city’s General Fund, not to substitute for it. But in the case of the disputed Kirstein Business branch closing in 2009, two Kirstein trust funds that paid for the maintenance of that building and its collection, are now used to offset operational expenses at the Copley Library. How? Trustees approved moving the business collection out of the Kirstein’s own beautiful building and into the dank basement of the Copley Library. The emptied Kirstein library building, located on prime real estate downtown, moreover, is used by the city for office space, at no obvious benefit to the BPL. As mayor, how will you ensure that library trust funds are used for library enrichment only, not to offset operational or General Fund expenses?
WALSH: Generous individuals who wish to support the library should feel confident that their legacy will be safely and respectfully administered by the library. While it is possible that original intentions can become no longer viable, all efforts should be exhausted prior to breaking a trust. I feel that if Library Trustees have been carefully vetted and the process is public and transparent, there would be much less likelihood of such a process being a cause for misunderstanding and anger. Further, the Library should consider social entrepreneurship and increased fundraising efforts to offset the decrease in state and federal funding that many non-profit organizations are facing in the current fiscal climate. As Mayor, I intend to review all city property and resources to ensure the best allocation of resources throughout all the departments.
CONNOLLY: The closing of the Kirstein branch was a real disappointment for many residents who visited the library regularly. It’s important that we do our very best to honor the wishes of the trusts’ donors. Through sound budgeting and efficient management, we have got to make sure we have adequate funding for the BPL’s operations.
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STABILIZING LIBRARY FUNDING:Between 2008 and 2010 no one from the BPL or the city advocated for Boston’s library funding at the Legislature, so state funding declined. Trustees, moreover, who are appointed exclusively by the mayor, tend to not oppose mayoral proposals to cut the library budget, or fight for library budget increases, adding to the financial decline of the BPL. Would you support a dedicated tax for public libraries as part of the property tax, or come up with another fiscal instrument, to ensure a long-term strategy to stabilize and expand the BPL budget to meet the exponential growth in demand for library services and community space?
WALSH: Before considering additional taxes for the library, I would like to review the current budget of the library and ensure that it is operating in a fiscally responsible manner. Since ensuring a high quality education is key to my administration, I would not foresee considering cuts to library services. Just as I have pledged to provide universal pre-K education to all 4 year olds, I intend to make sure that libraries are open and available in all the neighborhoods to support this. While it is valuable to have lobbying services for the library, the people of Boston are the most powerful lobbyists themselves. When there was the threat of cuts to the library, they made their voices heard. I stood firm in the legislature to support the neighborhood branches, and I would do so even more firmly as Mayor. I would look forward to working with Library Administration and the Trustees to ensure a healthy and long-term plan for the expansion and success of the entire BPL system.
CONNOLLY: If we re-envision libraries as centers of knowledge and community linked to schools, colleges, and other institutions in our neighborhoods, then I believe we can ensure a strong future for the BPL. Recognizing that there are many important priorities competing for taxpayer dollars, I am committed to working with you on strategies for ensuring that libraries have adequate, stable, long-term funding in place.